Ecuador chooses the president against the backdrop of the violence of the gangs

“The whole city feels that it is in a pandemic, locked up without being able to leave and enjoy our lives due to violence.”

This is how “Jorge” feels, not his real name, about his neighborhood in Guayaquil, a city in southern Ecuador.

His father, Marcos Elías León Maruri, was kidnapped there by the Los Tigueronenes gang.

A person is killed every two hours in Ecuador and seven are kidnapped daily, according to government figures.

That is why security is the main issue for voters before the first round of the presidential elections on Sunday, in which another 15 candidates question the headline Daniel Nnovera.

Whoever wins will have the task of restoring security to the country, which has gone from being one of the safest among the most dangerous in the region.

The increase in violence is partly reduced to the location of Ecuador, and the very high demand for cocaine in the largest markets of drugs such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.

Much of the cocaine of the world, of the coca leaves cultivated in Colombia and Peru, leaves the continent through the ports of Ecuador, and the powerful gangs fight to control this lucrative route.

Many of these gangs also participate in rescue kidnapping.

Maruri was one of his victims.

Hours after he was seized, Jorge received a text message. He said: “I have your father. How much will you pay for your family’s life?”

The next morning, he received a video that showed his father tied with his finger cut.

The gang initially demanded $ 100,000 (£ 80,000).

Jorge did not have it and began to negotiate: “They wanted $ 30,000 or cut another finger.”

Jorge hastened to offer them $ 5,000 and his television, playstation and car.

Just when the captors had agreed to a delivery, the police called it. They had found a body similar to their father.

“They had left my father’s body with his finger in a bottle tied to hand, like a mockery.”

Jorge’s life has been unraveled since then. Rarely leaves his house, now in a plane with CCTV cameras that he monitors anxiously.

His wife and daughter have fled from the country. He is no longer going to work because the gang knows the location.

The current government under President Daniel Novoa has responded to the increase in violence by militarizing the streets, giving the police high powers to use strength and raid buildings, and building new maximum security prisons.

Jorge supports these measures but criticizes the justice system.

“The government is working hard against corruption and making the police a lot. But it is useless if the justice system releases them. They care more about their rights than ours.”

While some, like Jorge, back the measures of Novoa, others feel that they allow human rights abuses, a key tension in this election.

I put this to Major Cristian Aldaz, of the Federal Police, during a raid in the city of Durán, for violence, the strongly armed security forces arrested a man accused of kidnapping and murder.

“Human rights, yes, but what about human rights for good people? We are in a war. Mafias use machine guns, grenades. Militarization aims to establish peace,” he says.

Surveys still have Novoa as the first slide, but has lost some land in recent months before its main rival, Luisa González, of the Left Citizen Revolution Movement.

In the campaign, González has promised human rights training for security forces, although he also expressed his support for the harshest militarization and surveillance, including the promotion of 20,000 new officers.

There is a case, in particular, that has made many Ecuadorians fear the indiscriminate use of force by security forces.

Last year, the military was confiscated four teenagers for an alleged robbery when they returned from playing football.

Their mutilated and burned bodies were found later.

Sixteen soldiers have been arrested and accused of the “forced disappearance” of children and are under investigation by murder.

Negan this, saying that they eventually let the children.

The bedroom of two of the children, Ismael and Josué Arroyo, is typical of that of many teenagers: full of clothes and football posters.

His father, Luis, grabs his football boots with raw pain. It is as if he could not believe that his children’s feet do not fill them again.

“Ismael wanted to fulfill his dream of being a professional footballer. A dream carried by these soldiers,” he cries.

The only identifiable remains left by Ismael and Josueé were a finger and one foot.

Luis’s anger and discomfort with the soldiers is clear.

“It’s not as if they catch and execute four dogs. They took four children. Then they went home to dinner.”

“We want justice,” he adds. “Children continue to be taken by the army and the government does nothing.”

The anger that has caused the case can lead some people to try to punish President Nemaa at the polls.

Luisa González, the woman hoping to defeat Novoa, has demanded resignations of justice and government for the death of children.

Some voters argue that Nevoa’s policies simply do not work.

A public transport worker in Durán, who did not want to be appointed, says that gangs call him to extort the money even from maximum security prisons.

Describe how gang members force drivers to pay “vaccines” (Spanish for vaccines, the term used to refer to daily extortion rates) to avoid attacks.

“There are colleagues who have already gone bankrupt. I have not worked since they almost killed me,” he tells me.

Other critics point to a poor economy, with particularly high youth unemployment that makes young people vulnerable to gang recruitment.

The slow responses to the drought last year also worsened the difficulties throughout the country, which depends on hydroelectric energy for 80% of its electricity, with power cuts that last up to 14 hours.

One of those affected was Christian Guerrero.

The 40 -year -old, who lives in a poorer neighborhood in Guayaquil, says that the constant blackouts broke both his refrigerator and his television.

He agrees with the opposition that there is no “plan” to avoid more interruptions.

The election occurs approximately one year after President Nemaa militarized the country through emergency decrees.

For Carlos and Laura Ipaneque, he has also spent approximately one year since his son, Carlos Javier Vega, was killed.

He had panicked at a control point when he heard shots and left, instead of stopping, causing the army to kill him.

His parents illustrate the lost dilemma that many Ecuadorians feel.

They live in a closed street, their house surrounded by metal bars, terrified by gang violence.

“The crime continues, the robberies continue, the kidnappings continue, the extortions continue,” says Laura.

But some now fear repression.

“I don’t want other people to have the pain we have,” says Laura through tears.

For many voters, this choice depends on whether they see the problem as worse than the cure.