ECUADOR PREXY BET LOST VIA 16% NULL VOTES

In a blow to Andres Arauz's presidential bid, environmentalist indigenous ex-candidate Yaku Perez called on his Ecuadorian supporters to cast null votes, which they did to the tune of 1.75 million, far more than the 423,000 vote difference between Lasso and Arauz, teleSUR reported.

Perez made the call in a talk with the New York Times after he was barred from joining Ecuador's second-round presidential elections Sunday, April 11. His party, the Pachakutik movement, urged citizens to vote null in the run-off.

More than 1.7 million of the votes cast at the polls, representing a formidable 16.33 percent of the total, were counted as null, sending a message of disapproval to both candidates who participated in the runoff.

This way of voting had its consequences. The 13 provinces where Yaku Perez obtained a majority of votes during the first round of elections were the ones that, in the end, were decisive in the victory of Guillermo Lasso.

"This is how many #Ecuadorians in #Europe vote in resistance to the lack of #transparency of the #CNE in #ElectionsEC2021," Perez asked their supporters to vote null in protest for what they consider an electoral fraud in the first round of February 7, when, after spending a large part of the count qualifying for the second round with Arauz, he was suddenly surpassed by Lasso by a mere 32,000 votes.

The electoral bodies dismissed his appeals and requests for a recount in several provinces of the country, including Lasso and Perez's agreement to request a recount, which Lasso himself retracted.

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