[News]Yaku Pérez, the indigenous leader who holds the keys to power

[SougarLord]

 

Despite being a unique day in her life, Inés Guartambel did not alter her activities. She got up early and went to take care of her animals, in the lands that surround her house, in the Tarqui parish, 15 kilometers from Cuenca. There, together with her relatives who milked the cows, she was there until hers came to look for her, her son Yaku Pérez, presidential candidate for Pachakutik, the political arm of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie). To go to the electoral precinct, in the Tarqui parish, they were joined by the candidate's daughters, Ñusta and Asiry.

 

At 10 in the morning they all went to the Fausto Molina school, in the parish center of Tarqui, to be together in this historic moment. Inés wore the typical skirt of the peasant women of the area and the toquilla straw hat. She was blissful. Her son, the presidential candidate, was also optimistic. Until the eve of the elections, he was in third place in all the polls, although they could not be disseminated, since an electoral law prohibits it. Pérez announced that if he got to Carondelet (seat of the government) he would do a clean, bringing shamans. "He has to be with very heavy air," he said, and reiterated his decision to ask the Constitutional Court for a national po[CENSORED]r consultation so that prior citizen consultation is mandatory before mining exploitation throughout the territory.

 

If Yaku gets a good percentage, his position will be key in the second round for the political future of Ecuador. At first it could be thought that he is closer to Arauz's positions, but Yaku Pérez does not hide his animosity for the "correísmo" that he represents.

 

Pérez has been in jail several times for defending water and opposing mining; four of them during the Correa government, although one was for opposing the indefinite reelection that the ex-president wanted, whose government also imprisoned and expelled his partner, the Franco-Brazilian academic Manuela Picq, from the country.

 

He talks about eliminating several state institutions, reducing the number of assembly members by half (today 137), working with businessmen and is open to signing a trade agreement with the United States, which distances him from the traditional Ecuadorian left.

 

His relatives say that he never gets angry, which is attributed to him meditating and doing yoga. In 2013 he lost his wife, sick with cancer; with her he had two daughters, who have been fully involved in the campaign. He remarried Manuela Picq, in an ancestral ceremony, but the Civil Registry did not recognize the union. Along with her, who came from the United States, where he now resides, they have starred in videos that have been posted on Tik Tok, which have received criticism, "for trivializing politics", but which have led to many followers on the networks.