SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
WHEN Ecuadorians go to the polls to choose their president on April 11, the choice could not be starker. A young left-wing economist, Andres Arauz, will run off against Guillermo Lasso, the founder of one of Ecuador’s largest banks, arch free-marketeer and a former minister linked to Ecuador’s deepest ever economic crisis.
Arauz is the clear favourite, with a double-digit poll lead and having topped the first-round vote with a 12 per cent advantage over Lasso.
Ecuador looks set to be the latest Latin American country to elect a left-wing government after Bolivia, Argentina and Mexico in recent years.
Far-right forces are rising across Latin America and the Caribbean, armed with a common agenda of anti-communism, the culture war, and neoliberal economics, writes VIJAY PRASHAD
LEE BROWN highlights the latest attempts to undo progressive reforms instated during the presidency of Rafael Correa
Noboa’s second term looks set to deepen his neoliberal policies: reduced public investment, privatization, cuts to social programmes, and militarisation, says PILAR TROYA FERNANDEZ
Ecuador’s election wasn’t free — and its people will pay the price under President Noboa



