Saquisili, Ecuador – Every Thursday, the Indigenous market in the Ecuadorian town of Saquisili buzzes with crowds from across the province of Cotopaxi and beyond. Women in felt hats and men in weathered ponchos barter over alpaca scarves and clay pots amid the aroma of slow-cooked stew.
But in recent weeks, campaign posters have appeared among the stalls.
As the run-off in Ecuador’s presidential race approaches on April 13, the final two candidates are attempting to court one of the country’s key demographics: Indigenous voters.
Both the centre-right incumbent President Daniel Noboa and his main rival, leftist Luisa Gonzalez, received about 44 percent of the vote in the first round of the election on February 9.
But in Saquisili, the Indigenous candidate, Leonidas Iza, won. Nationally, he secured 5 percent of the first-round vote, putting him in third place behind Noboa and Gonzalez.
Given the tight race in the second round, the roughly 539,000 votes he garnered could be crucial to the outcome in the run-off.
The president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Iza had run as the candidate for the group’s political arm, the Pachakutik (PK) party.
After Iza was knocked out in the first round, his party endorsed Gonzalez at a March 30 assembly, where she agreed to a list of 25 demands.
“The support for Luisa Gonzalez isn’t a blank cheque,” said Iza, who joined the assembly remotely through video. “It’s an opportunity to create space for and strengthen the autonomous struggle against the right.”
But the decision has divided Ecuador’s Indigenous communities, with local leaders denouncing the agreement and one of the largest regional organisations supporting Noboa despite the PK’s endorsement.
Insiders and activists say that dissent calls into question not only Iza’s ability to mobilise his base but also the overall unity of the Indigenous movement going forward — whoever wins.