Crisis Chronology

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ECUADOR

01/17/2024

Military regains control of prisons.

01/09/2024

Government declares state of emergency after drug lord Fito escapes from prison and unrest rises at several prisons. Gangsters subsequently storm a television newsroom in Guayaquil and launch a series of riots, kidnappings, and explosions across the country. As a result, schools are closed and the military is called to stop gang activities.

10/15/2023

Noboa elected president

Noboa wins the runoff with 52.2% of the vote to Gonzalez’s 47.8%. His party, National Democratic Action, will not have enough seats to govern alone.

10/06/2023

Six suspects in the murder of Villavicencio, all Colombians, are killed in prison.

08/21/2023

General election. With nearly 80% of the votes counted, Luisa Gonzalez, allied with former president Rafael Correa, has 33% of the vote, and businessman Daniel Noboa has 24%. The two leading candidates would contest a runoff on 10/12. Noboa is young, relatively politically inexperienced and the heir to a fortune built on the banana trade. It is not entirely clear what his program will be, although he has talked about fighting the widespread violence and corruption, and to create more jobs. His main attraction seems to be that he was young and not part of the political establishment.

08/10/2023

Government declares a state of emergency for sixty days in response to Villavicencio’s killing.

08/09/2023

Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio is shot and killed at a campaign event in Quito. He was a critic of corruption and organized crime, and the government blames drug cartels for the murder.

05/17/2023

Parliament dissolved

Lasso dissolves parliament, which was controlled by the opposition, triggering a national election. To do so, Lasso invoked a constitutional mechanism commonly known as “muerte cruzada” or “two-way death,” which had never been used before. Lasso and his coalition, Creating Opportunities, will not participate in the election. He is able to rule by decree for six months.

05/16/2023

Parliament begins impeachment proceedings against Lasso for embezzlement.

02/05/2023

Voting on eight constitutional reforms, including one that will allow Ecuadorean criminals to be extradited, which Lasso has advocated. All reforms fail, and two opposition figures are elected mayors in Ecuador’s two largest cities.

11/02/2022

Government declares a state of emergency in two provinces, Guayas and Esmeraldas, for 45 days following the killing of police officers and prison guards by organized crime members.

10/05/2022

New outbreak of fighting inside a large prison kills 13. This follows two clashes in other prisons.

09/19/2022

Government reaches agreement on restricting its debt with China.

07/06/2022

After discussions with indigenous leaders that lead to an agreement to end the strikes, four cabinet ministers resign.

06/28/2022

Lasso survives no-confidence vote. 80 Assembly members voted to oust him, short of the 92 of the 92 (of 137 members) needed.

06/23/2022

Eleventh day of protests against the government. Four protestors have died, though not from police action. Many other protestors have been hurt and a similar number of police.

04/30/2022

Government imposes state of emergency in three provinces in order to fight drug-related violence. Police and soldiers will be deployed.

03/27/2022

Constitutional referendum repealing the Law of Urgent Consideration fails. The LUC, passed in 2020, strengthened the police and security forces.

10/19/2021

. Government declares a 60-day state of emergency in response to a rise in violent drug crime. The military will be deployed to patrol streets and prisons.

09/29/2021

Government declares an emergency in prisons after more than 116 are killed in massive prison warfare between gangs in Litoral penitentiary in Guayaquil on 9/28/21.

07/28/2021

Government has stripped Julian Assange of citizenship. He is currently in a British prison, fighting extradition to the US.

04/12/2021

Lasso elected president

Election commission announces that Lasso won 52.4% of the vote and Arauz 47.6%.

04/11/2021

Lasso declares himself the winner of the runoff. With almost all votes counted, he has a 52.5% majority.

02/21/2021

Election council certifies that Lasso will face Arauz in runoff.

02/13/2021

Ecuador’s top electoral body has said it will conduct a partial recount of 2/7 election after a request from two candidates still fighting for second place. Indigenous activist Yaku Perez and right-wing former banker Guillermo Lasso filed a request for the recount on Friday, as the race to join economist Andres Arauz in an April presidential runoff remains too close to call. Correa led with about 32% of the vote.

02/07/2021

General election. There are sixteen candidates, but voter apathy is very high. The main candidates are Socialist Andrés Arauz, a follower of Correa; Guillermo Lasso, a pro-business conservative; and Yaku Pérez, an environmentalist and indigenous rights activist. To win in te first round a candidate must receive either 50% or more of the vote or 40% with a 10% lead over any other candidate.

05/01/2020

Cases of COVID-19 continue to rise substantially, though accuate numbers are hard to confirm. IMF approves $640 billion to cope with the pandemic.

04/07/2020

Former president Correa convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to eight years in prison. He is banned from public office for 25 years. The case arose from an investigation known as Arroz Verde (Green Rice).

04/03/2020

COVID-19 outbreak especially serious, with coffins left on the street. While the government quickly restricted travel, the public was slow to respond, celebrating Carnival almost as usual. There are now more than 3000 cases, largely centered in Guayaquil.

02/29/2020

Ecuador confirms its first case of COVID-19 in Guayaquil.

10/13/2019

Government agrees to cancel austerity measures. Indigenous leaders and other protestors agree to end demonstrations. Both sides agree to work together on a new economic policy of government spending cuts and taxes to increase revenues.

10/12/2019

Government extends curfews and restrictions on travel and holds talks with indigenous groups leading the protests.

10/11/2019

Quito now under the de facto control of the demonstrators. The protestors call for the IMF to leave the country.

10/09/2019

Moreno says he will not resign under any circumstances.

10/07/2019

Government closes major oilfield during unrest and moves out of Quito. Moreno says he will not modify oil price increase and blames Correa and Venezuelan Pres Maduro for the unrest. The Social Commitment movement led by Correa issues a statement denying the accusations.

10/03/2019

Government declares a state of emergency over continuing protests and strikes about new economic changes. The increase in gas, about 40% for gasoline and 50% for diesel, goes into effect today.

10/01/2019

Moreno announces fiscal changes intended to strengthen the economy and combat smuggling: tax reform, relaxing labor protections and doing away with 40-year-old fuel subsidies. He also says Ecuador will leave OPEC in order to ship gas and oil above the group’s restrictions.

04/11/2019

Assange is arrested in London. He is wanted in the UK for failing to post bail in regard to an extradition request from Sweden that he face sexual assault charges. That case lapsed in 2017, but Scotland Yard now says that he has been arrested in connection with an extradition request from the US. Ecuador’s Pres Lenin Moreno has requested that he not be extradited to any country with the death penalty. Scotland Yard, which was invited into Ecuador’s London embassy by the ambassador, has said he would not be extradited to the US if he faced the death penalty, and the US has said that he faces jail time for computer intrusion.

04/02/2019

Pres Moreno says that Julian Assange has repeatedly violated his asylum agreement.

12/06/2018

Ecuador says that Julian Assange can leave its UK embassy after an agreement with the UK not to extradite him to any country that would seek the death penalty.

11/08/2018

Former Ecuador president Rafael Correa, ordered to stand trial in regard to the kidnapping of his political opponent Fernando Balda in 2012. Correa, who has been living in Belgium, requests asylum there.

08/09/2018

Government declares an emergency in three northern states due to the large-scale migration from Venezuela.

07/04/2018

Court orders arrest of former president Rafael Correa, now living in Belgium, in regard to a political opponent briefly kidnapped in 2012.

01/11/2018

Government grants Wikileaks founder Julian Assange citizenship.

01/06/2018

Parliament elects Maria Alejandra Vicuna to be vice-president.

01/05/2018

Correa returns to Ecuador from Belgium to campaign against a referendum that could prevent his re-election. The referendum on 2/4/18 would reimpose term limits on presidents.

11/01/2017

Country Alliance party removes Lenin Moreno as head, replacing him with Ricardo Patino, an ally of former Pres Rafael Correa. Moreno has advocated term limits for presidency and fought corruption, and is popular.