In the second round of presidential elections in Ecuador on Sunday, April 2, Rafael Correa’s successor as leader of Alianza País (Country Alliance, AP), Lenín Moreno, won 51.6 percent of the vote, defeating conservative Guillermo Lasso, who took 48.8 percent. What is the significance of these elections, ten years after Correa first assumed office?

Decio Machado, born in Brazil in 1968, was an adviser to Correa during his first term (2007–9), and has been one of the sharpest observers of Ecuador’s politics during the ten years of Correa’s rule. Machado is a founding member of the editorial board of the Spanish website Diagonal. He is an associate researcher in Sistemas Integrados de Análisis Socioeconómico and director of the Fundación Alternativas Latinoamericanas de Desarrollo Humano y Estudios Antropológicos (ALDHEA). He is coauthor, with Raúl Zibechi, of Cambiar el mundo desde arriba: Los límites del progresismo (2016).

Machado spoke to Felipe Pineda Ruiz of Democracia en la red, following the second round of presidential elections.