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Ecuador Elections: Leftist Candidate Lenin Moreno Wins

Julian Assange is happy tonight. Leftist candidate Lenin Moreno has been declared the winner in Ecuador's presidential election. Moreno defeated right-wing ex-banker Guillermo Lasso. Earlier Sunday, dueling exit polls had each of them winning.

Here is Moreno's Twitter account.

Lasso sounds like a Trump clone. [More...]

"They've toyed with popular will," the former banker Lasso said on Sunday night, asking for a recount and saying he was the real winner of the vote.

Lasso claimed he would increase jobs, cut taxes and make Julian Assange leave the country.

The alternative offered by Lasso was a pro-business, pro-austerity programme that promised tax cuts and more jobs, though Lasso was plagued with accusations of tax avoidance through dozens of offshore accounts.

He also promised to ask Assange to leave the Ecuadorean Embassy in London within a month of securing a mandate because he said the asylum granted to the WikiLeaks founder was posing a burden on the country’s taxpayers.

Lasso also pandered to fear:

"[T]here’s a path to Venezuela or a path to democracy and freedom.”

Moreno, who was the current President's vice-president unitl 2013, has been in a wheelchair since a robbery in 1998 left him disabled. He's been a champion of rights for the disabled ever since.

As Correa’s vice president from 2007 to 2013, Moreno became a high-profile advocate for disabled rights. He helped launch a program called Manuela Espejo, where brigades of young people went searching for disabled shut-ins.

He pushed for inclusive labor laws, wheelchair accessible crosswalks and monthly $50 stipends for those unable to work or who are taking care of disabled relatives. Now, almost 500,000 people are registered with the National Council for Equality of those with Disabilities. The push made Moreno a national icon and burnished his international credentials. (He was a U.N. Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility before throwing his hat into the ring for president.)

Moreno's positions:

[He]promises to bolster social welfare in oil-rich Ecuador, with benefits for the disabled, single mothers, youth, and the elderly.

Ecuador is a tiny country, but its election is viewed as a bellweather for the region.

The election will also have regional ramifications. Should Moreno win, it will cement Ecuador’s reputation as a bastion of the left in Latin America. Should he lose, it will be taken as another sign of the region’s retreating “pink wave”, following defeats for the left in an Argentinian election and a Bolivian referendum, plus the impeachment and ousting of Workers’ party president Dilma Rousseff in Brazil.

I'm happy for Ecuadorians that they chose their leader more wisely and responsibly than Americans. Congratulations, President Elect Moreno.

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  • Display: Sort:
    i dont understand (none / 0) (#1)
    by linea on Mon Apr 03, 2017 at 12:29:56 AM EST
    the term "Leftist" in reference to south american politics. at university we read excerpts from noam chomsky's "Year 501: The Conquest Continues" but the professor also stated that while he understood and could support the early south american revolutions he observed historically that they devolved into totalitarian regimes.

    Julian Assange is happy tonight.

    i dont know what to make of this. i assume assange is happy in a selfish way and would have been just as happy with lasso or any other candidate if he could maintain refuge in the embassy.

    i support the law and legal standards that assange is being accused of and feel he needs to stand trial in sweden

    all you had to do (none / 0) (#2)
    by Jeralyn on Mon Apr 03, 2017 at 12:40:52 AM EST
    was click on any of the links I supplied and you would understand, if you really wanted to.

    Here's another one:

    [Outgoing President]Correa was swept into office in 2007 amid a Latin American shift to the left that saw the likes of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Uruguay's José "Pepe" Mujica and Argentina's Christina Fernandez de Kirchner in office.

    Ten years later, Correa and Morales are the last men standing. And in that sense, the region is watching to see if Correa -- a U.S. trained economist with a penchant for winning elections and bashing Washington -- can hand off the presidency and safeguard his legacy.

    Moreno was Correa's candidate, who will carry on his legacy.

    As for Assange, no need to bold your position and since it is against the accused, please don't repeat it. This is a pro-defense website. And again, if you followed the links to the Guardian article, you would see that one candidate, the conservative banker, threatened to have him removed from the embassy in 30 days. The left-leaning candidate who won said he'd honor the previous decision by Correa to allow him to stay.

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    im sorry (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by linea on Mon Apr 03, 2017 at 01:58:31 AM EST
    i did read the Guardian article.

    As for Assange, no need to bold your position and since it is against the accused, please don't repeat it. This is a pro-defense website.

    im only saying that i support the vulnerable sexual assault laws of sweden - and feel assange should be brought before a msgistrate - not that assange is guilty.

    and i feel there is a NEED to say that i support the assault laws of sweden because they are consistently ridiculed and misstated.

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    now i'm angry! (none / 0) (#4)
    by linea on Mon Apr 03, 2017 at 02:33:52 AM EST
    this is "talk left" and i cant support sweden's progressive laws that protect women? i just get more angry thinking about this!

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    you can say it and you did (none / 0) (#5)
    by Jeralyn on Mon Apr 03, 2017 at 12:49:14 PM EST
    Once. That's enough thank you.

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    How about you tell us what conduct (none / 0) (#6)
    by Peter G on Mon Apr 03, 2017 at 05:57:57 PM EST
    Sweden has criminalized, when done with what state of mind or intent by the accused, that you think is a good reform of sexual assault law for women, and why you think it is good, rather than just state a conclusion and announce your feelings (again), such as being "angry"? I'd be interested in a reasoned explanation, if you can offer one. I doubt anyone else here knows much about Swedish criminal law. But I'd venture a guess that several of us (myself included) would be interested in learning something about it, since it lurks beneath the surface of the Assange situation.

    Parent
    sexual assault law reform (none / 0) (#8)
    by linea on Sat Apr 08, 2017 at 06:09:01 PM EST
    • i support no means no laws. rather than the u.s. standard where in most states, there's a requirement of force in order to prove rape, rather than just demonstrating lack of consent.
      [reference: feministe.us]

    • i support withdrawl of consent as grounds for a rape charge where if you consent to having sex with someone and part of the way through you say to stop and the person you're having sex with continues to have sex with you against your wishes, that's rape.
      [reference: feministe.us]

    • i support sweden's vulnerable sexual assault law which prohibits sex with a sleaping or unconscious person. this seems to be mocked in the english-language press as "sex by suprise."

    about assange specifically, privacy laws in sweden prevent the prosecution authority from publically disclosing details. i believe the only authoritative statements we have were made by gemma lindfield representing sweden before the london court to request that assange be denied bail.

    gemma lindfield informed the court that assange "sexually molested" the complainant by having sex with her without a condom when it was her "express wish" one should be used and that she was the victim of "unlawful coercion" where assange used his body weight to hold her down and continued to have sex with her and that assange also "deliberately molested" the complainant "in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity." assange is also accused of having sex with a second complainant while she was asleep at her home.

    so yes. i feel these are valid charges and serious charges and while im not declaring assange guilty; i do feel assange should be brought before a magistrate in sweden. where he will be given a fair hearing in a country that's recognized world-wide as having a fair judicial process. this shoudnt be controversial.


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    The feminist critique of rape law (5.00 / 1) (#9)
    by Peter G on Sun Apr 09, 2017 at 07:20:58 PM EST
    has had a salutary effect on most U.S. states' laws over the last 40 years. Lack of consent is now more important than force in most states, the marital exemption no longer exists, and "force" has been re-defined to mean "sufficient force to achieve penetration" rather than the former "sufficient force to overcome earnest resistance." I agree that sexual relations with an unconscious or sleeping person should be presumed non-consensual, although in a longstanding relationship there may be prior consent as a matter of fact; for that reason, I suggest a presumption rather than a rule. Withdrawal of consent is factually problematic, and I have mixed feelings about it, given the unfairness of subsequent regret being transmuted into a claim of withdrawn consent and the high risk of mutual misunderstanding. So, as I say, I have mixed feelings on that one. In the Assange case, I don't know if the alleged "molestation" in that case is alleged to be rape or not.

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    thank you (none / 0) (#10)
    by linea on Sun Apr 09, 2017 at 11:20:22 PM EST
    i moved this to
    Thursday Open Thread

    Parent