Guayaquil (Ecuador).- Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa (2007 – 2017) broke with Marcela Aguiñaga, prefect of the province of Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil, this Tuesday. Aguiñaga came to local power with the support of the correista movement Revolución Ciudadana (RC), and Correa told her that she should better go to “dialogue” with the current president, Daniel Noboa.
“Dear Marcela: You are too important and wise for the current RC5. Just go and talk to Noboa, we will NOT do it,” wrote Correa on his X social media account after Aguiñaga assured on Monday in an interview that he was considering his continuity in the party, in view of a possible re-election to which he would run in 2027.
“I will remember what I have been for the RC, I have been involved in politics since this party started. I have endured the good times and the bad. I feel a lot of nostalgia leaving the organization that I have helped build,” said the prefect, who was also the national leader of the movement before the former presidential candidate Luisa González took that position, and has been one of the most important figures in the organization.
“Even when very few of us remained, I kept going; when many of us were pursued, I stayed. I didn’t flee; I stayed here in the country, facing it. So I think it’s important to give myself a space for deep reflection because I want to make decisions that don’t come from my anger and rage, but from the deep rationality that my province deserves,” added Aguiñaga on the program De Lunes a Lunes.
“Marcela: Don’t reflect on ANYTHING. I insist: you are too important and wise for us. Surely with Lourdes Tibán and your -deserved- political capital you will win the re-election. You are a very valuable woman. But don’t count on us: a gram of principles is worth more than tons of work. A hug and always the affection”, Correa wrote in another publication on X.
The former president had already strongly criticized Aguiñaga on November 20th, when the prefect met in Guayaquil with her counterpart from the Andean province of Cotopaxi, Lourdes Tibán, from the indigenous Pachakutik party and openly anti-Correa.
Aguiñaga is also part of a group of local authorities from correismo such as the prefects of Pichincha, Paola Pabón; of Manabí, Leonardo Orlando, and of Azuay, Juan Cristóbal Lloret; and the mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, who asked Correa for a renewal in the party after González lost the last two presidential elections to Noboa.
