Correa Wins by a Landslide

The campaign season wrapped up this past Thursday with parades of honking cars, concerts in the public squares and of course, boozing. “País”, the socialist party of current president Rafael Correa, threw a big flashy party up in Parque Bolivar, complete with scantily clad backup dancers. “Pachakutik”, the indigenous party, threw a smaller party with traditional Kichwa music down in the Plaza de Ponchos. Elsa, Pacha, Kent and I got dollar slices of pizza then went to check out the festivities.

One of Pachakutik’s fliers promised the construction of a monorail, pyramid and giant market complex. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any of this will be happening soon since only two Pachakutik candidates were elected in the whole country. País for its part will continue to offer monthly welfare bonuses of $30, which, according to my host brother Alberto, have made Ecaudorians lazy. On Sunday, Correa won another turn as president, by a landslide of 60% (the next candidate had 30%). The election was of “good quality” according to the EU observers, but there was some violence on the coast.

One of the strangest political things I’ve heard recently (aside from the promised monorail) is that Obama wants to go to war with Ecuador. Whoa. To give some context, this came from an 8 year-old girl who had heard from her mom that Obama supports Colombia and therefore would go to war with Ecuador. It’s interesting to hear how news and politics are “interpreted”, to put it kindly.

Cotacachi Volcano on a nice clear day.