The relationship between Ecuador and Mexico deteriorates after diplomatic impasse

Diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Mexico are heading to their lowest level in recent years due to the expulsion of the ambassador of that country in Quito after the Mexican president's controversial statements regarding the recent Ecuadorian presidential elections, analysts warned on Friday.

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld said that Mexican ambassador Raquel Serur Smeke has 72 hours to leave the country and argued that the Mexican president's statements “offend the Ecuadorian State, the Ecuadorians.”

Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Wednesday that the assassination of the Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, days before the first electoral round of August 2023, influenced voting trends.

“There were elections in Ecuador; The candidate of the progressive forces was about 10 points ahead” and “then, a candidate who speaks badly of the candidate who is at the top is assassinated and the candidate who was at the top falls and the candidate who was in second rises,” stated the Mexican leader.

López Obrador was referring to the presidential candidate Luisa González, from the Citizen Revolution party of former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa (2007-2017). “She remains a suspect after this murder, she continues campaigning in, I consider, very difficult circumstances,” said the Mexican president.

Daniel Noboa, who was not initially among those with the most options in the polls, He was the winner of the October elections.

The expulsion of the Mexican ambassador “deteriorates the diplomatic relationship, because we are demonstrating dissatisfaction with interference in internal politics,” Daniel Crespo, a professor and international analyst at the San Francisco University, told The Associated Press and warned that it is very likely that Mexico do the same “out of diplomatic reciprocity.”

He added that “daily and commercial activities will not be greatly affected” but that political conversations – for example about the irregular migration of Ecuadorians passing through Mexico to the United States – “will surely be interrupted.”

He added that the Ecuadorian reaction was unnecessarily strong “because it took the harshest measure taken in this type of situation,” without first sending a note of protest.

Amanda Villavicencio, one of the daughters of the murdered Ecuadorian candidate, reacted with indignation on her X account, formerly Twitter. “Wash your mouth López Obrador before talking about my father. Fernando Villavicencio was murdered by the gangsters that he always investigated. Some of them asylum in your embassies and in your country,” she stated.

For the former diplomat and professor at the Ecotec Technological University, Carlos Estarellas, Ecuador's decision was “correct” because it “respects sovereignty” and the fundamental principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States.

According to the expert, “Mexico had already been demonstrating an irregular relationship with Ecuador” by accepting as refugees “people from the Correa government who committed common crimes.” The “most serious” case, he said, is that of former vice president Jorge Glas, who has sentences in several corruption cases.

On Friday, the Mexican embassy, ​​located in the north of Quito, appeared relatively normal and with normal police guard to prevent Glas, who has not been given political asylum, from escaping from that mission.

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