Gladys had everything ready from the very first hour. Ecuadorian flags, drink, food and Internet connection. His compatriots were arriving at his house in the Hortaleza neighborhood (Madrid) throughout the morning. They all wanted to vote together in the general elections in Ecuador on August 20.

It is the first time that everything is done electronically and they feared that there would be an altercation. María has been trying to vote since nine in the morning, but the page does not stop giving her an error. Eight people are already sitting around a round table in the courtyard, each with their mobile phone.

Sonia is in charge of helping the elderly with difficulties to understand the process. “Come on, it’s my turn, let’s see if there’s any luck,” says Eduardo Plaza, 70 years old. Two hours later, there was none.. Voting is being an odyssey.

Ecuadorians residing in Madrid have experienced two parallel realities during the last two months: on the one hand, the anguish and impotence due to the security crisis that their country is going through from a distance.

On the other, the exhaustion of the infinite virtual steps to follow to be able to vote in the elections. To “change things”, says Sonia, you have to vote; But it is not so easy. “The information has not been very fluid, they have assumed that we knew how to use the tools,” continues Eduardo.

In order to exercise their right, Ecuadorians living in Spain had to register on the electoral roll at the National Electoral Council (CNE).. Those who had problems, like Mercedes, 68, had to go to the Consulate to register.. “The vote is from nine to seven,” explains Sonia. It is three in the afternoon and, for the moment, only four of those present have managed to finish the process. It’s a mess: start it, wait for an email with a code that usually ends up in spam, enter the national identification number, take a selfie, choose the candidate… “I got an error again!” exclaims María.

Around 94,000 voters registered in the CNE register in Spain to participate in these elections. More than 18,000 did so in the Community of Madrid, the European region with the most Ecuadorian immigration (37,000).

A turbulent campaign

As each engages in a personal battle against their mobile device, they share their stories and opinions out loud.. “I can’t even vote for myself, it doesn’t work!” says Aída Quinatoa between laughs and frustration.

This lawyer and anti-eviction activist presents herself as an assembly member abroad for the Pachakatuik party, in defense of public policies.

“I wanted to vote for Fernando Villavicencio, but…”, explains Gladys.

The candidate was assassinated on August 9 at the exit of a rally. Gladys’s brother, an economist and journalist by profession, was a classmate of the politician at university. That day he went to see him at the event in Quito: they hugged and promised to greet each other properly after the event. That final meeting never happened: he was shot dead.

“He was a good person”, thinks Gladys. This electoral campaign was marked mainly by the security crisis. The Fernando Villavicencio thing was just the tip of the iceberg of the problem that the country is going through.

The culmination of a phenomenon that has permeated Ecuadorian society for four years: the rates of violence are soaring in a nation that, in the eighties, was considered “the island of peace.”. Days after the assassination of the presidential candidate, a local leader close to former President Rafael Correa was also shot in the province of Esmeralda.

Now there is restlessness, fear and unpredictable days. In 2022, more than 4,500 deaths due to violence were registered and only so far this year, that figure exceeds 3,500. The numbers suggest that the record for blood murders will be broken.

Everyone fears for their relatives on the other side of the pond. “My brother-in-law was kidnapped for two days three months ago. He is traumatized. They took $2,000 from him and released him on the condition that he hand over another $16,000 the next day. He did so, if they didn’t kill him,” explains Eduardo.

Others confronted those known as “vaccinators.” Cruz Zhimay, 58, has not come to this meeting of locals because she is at the airport to pick up her daughter , but he shares his story with this newspaper: “My family opened a boutique in the center of Cuenca last year. They broke in to steal every week and the police did nothing. Then came the vaccinators, who charge you a fee per month in exchange for not being mugged,” he explains by phone. Finally, they closed the business.

Between chat and chat, the phone rings.

—Okay, now we make a video call and see it—, answers Sonia.

Ecuadorians who are having trouble voting try to seek help.

Those present at Gladys’ house are children of the massive migration to Europe and the United States between 1999 and the beginning of the two thousand. Ecuador was going through a strong economic crisis of an inflationary type —which especially impoverished the middle classes— which culminated, among other things, in the dollarization of Ecuador.

Beatriz Penagos, a resident of Móstoles, acknowledges how before “we boasted of being a peaceful place”, and now she fears for the safety of her daughter and her two granddaughters. She has nine years left to retire: “If things were better, I would leave now”.

How has this ancient haven of Latin American peace come to this situation? What underlies the shootings, threats and extortions is the increase in power that criminal gangs have acquired in recent years.. Although Ecuador was known as a kind of peaceful oasis in the middle of two conflicting nations —Peru and Colombia—, the reality is no longer the same.

The country also had criminal groups that had been operating in the region for decades, but things started to get worse when the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels gained power inside Ecuador’s borders.. The Albanian mafia was not far behind and also found a place in the country. Now, Ecuador is a major drug operations center.

“It is a failed democracy,” reflects Eduardo Plaza. Both he and Sonia declare that they voted for Guillermo Lasso —who dissolved the Assembly and called early elections— just to prevent correísmo from returning to power, but without being very convinced of his candidacy. “His government has been lousy,” he explains.

Plaza acknowledges that he was a faithful defender of Correa in his early days. Now, no one convinces him. Rafael Correa was the president of the Andean country from 2007 to 2017. During their terms, the ports were privatized. In those years, violence took off in prisons and spread outside the cells.

Local criminal groups—Los Lobos or Los Choneros—began to establish ties with Mexican and Albanian bigwigs and cross-border fighting broke out for control of the merchandise. A proxy war where Ecuadorians are in hand-to-hand combat.

All this has caused a certain feeling of boredom among the population of the Andean country. President Correa has been sentenced to eight years for corruption. The Prosecutor’s Office also requests preventive detention for bribery of his successor, Lenin Moreno.

And Guillermo Lasso’s supposed attempts to improve the situation backfired. The point is that those who have a passport from the Andean country admit to feeling “fear”. According to the Latinobarómetro 2023 Report: the democratic recession of Latin America, 87% of Ecuadorians are dissatisfied with their democracy. And only 37% support the implementation of a democratic system, while another 37% are “indifferent” to the type of regime.

The study shows that Ecuador has as many democrats as indifferent. A breeding ground for authoritarianism. “This is how he faces the political crisis of extraordinary elections in August 2023, with democratic weakness and a high contingent of citizens prone to populism. We understand the indifference to the type of regime and the preference for authoritarianism as fertile ground for populism,” the experts warn.

The call for early elections caught them by surprise. Residents in Spain understand that the vote is telematic because, in just three months, it was too hasty to organize face-to-face elections. But they hoped the system would work a little better.. Sonia acknowledges that she maintains the hope that her country will prosper. If not, “what do we have left?“, he wonders.

At seven in the evening the term closed. Only four of the eight people who came to Gladys’ house were able to vote. “I have received more than 10 calls in a row from outraged people. It just can’t be”. This Monday at 10 in the morning they will gather in front of the Madrid Consulate to protest the voting system.