Ecuador’s presidential candidate Yaku Pérez supported coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. His US-backed party Pachakutik and supposedly “left-wing” environmentalist campaign is being promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists.
by Ben Norton
Part 7 - Right-wing corporate lobby group AS/COA promotes Yaku Pérez’s campaign
Articles by anarchist-oriented US environmentalist organizations like Extinction Rebellion leave readers with the impression that Yaku Pérez Guartambel is Ecuador’s best choice for the left.
But a look at some of Pérez’s most high-profile promoters, including powerful right-wing corporate lobby groups, illustrates an ulterior agenda.
On February 1, the US website Americas Quarterly published a puff piece praising the third-place candidate, titled “Yaku Pérez: The New Face of Ecuador’s Left?”
The article spread misleading disinformation demonizing Rafael Correa, trumpeting, “Pérez said he offers such voters an alternative to the ‘authoritarian and corrupt left’ of Correa.”
Americas Quarterly said it conducted a survey of a dozen analysts who “ranked Pérez further to the left than Arauz.”
The website also happily pointed out, “On foreign policy, Pérez has said he is open to a trade deal with the United States and has called out China’s ‘aggressive policies around extractivism and human rights.'”
Author Brendan O’Boyle shared the piece promoting “the anti-Correa, ‘ecological left’ that he represents.”
So what exactly is Americas Quarterly? Is it a left-liberal publication that promotes environmentalism and Indigenous rights?
On the contrary: Americas Quarterly is an arm of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA), a right-wing lobby group funded by most major US corporations.
AS/COA has played an important role in backing coups against progressive governments in Latin America and propping up unpopular neoliberal regimes.
AS/COA’s list of corporate members is a Who’s Who of the most powerful companies on the planet, many of which profit from destroying the environment and waging war, such as Amazon, Apple, BlackRock, Boeing, Caterpillar, Chevron, Chiquita, Exxon Mobil, Ford, GE, Goldman Sachs, Google, JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Walmart.
So why would an organization funded by these mega-corporations, which normally supports right-wing politicians across Latin America, suddenly promote a left-wing candidate in Ecuador? And why would it have us believe that Yaku Pérez is in fact even more left-wing than Andrés Arauz and the Correista movement?
The answer is that Pérez does not truly represent the left; he is an insidious vehicle for Washington’s interests in Ecuador. AS/COA has sought to falsely portray Pérez as the left-wing alternative to Correismo because it recognizes that he would serve their interests if he somehow managed to win, and is splitting the left by simply staying in the race, making a second round more likely.
It is for the same reason that right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso has said he would support Pérez.
The United States is desperate to prevent the socialist wave that washed across Latin America during the first decade of the 21st century from coming back. And in Washington’s bid to stop the tide, “ecosocialist” figures like Yaku Pérez are perfect tools.
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