Title : Ecuador: The Girón mining referendum soap-opera (from IKN512)
link : Ecuador: The Girón mining referendum soap-opera (from IKN512)
Ecuador: The Girón mining referendum soap-opera (from IKN512)
A segment from this weekend's edition of The IKN Weekly, IKN512, in which we attempt to explain why the Azuay referendum vote set to happen this Sunday March 24th is important to INV Metals (INV.to), to the region around it and to the mining industry all over Ecuador.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ecuador: The Girón mining referendum soap-opera
We need to catch up on what’s been going on around the “popular consultancy” referendum in the Girón canton of Azuay, South Ecuador. As reported on these pages no end of times, this is the vote scheduled for March 24ththat has been officially sanctioned by Ecuador’s electoral body (the CNE) and in theory at least, will decide whether the zone allows mining to go ahead. This is a direct threat to INV Metals (INV.to) and its Loma Larga (ex-Quimsacocha) project located in the zone.
First, what happened last week and as reported on the blog (3) on Wednesday a judge in the capital Quito ruled that the vote could not go ahead (4) as it did not yet have a judgment or ruling on its validity from the country’s Constitutional Court. The ruling was quickly celebrated by the country’s Vice-Minister of Mining in radio shows the next day and also by INV.to. As reported by Canaccord in a note to clients, here is how INV CEO Candace MacGibbon reacted to the news of the suspension:
Ms. Candace MacGibbon, CEO, stated, “We are very pleased that this decision ensures the rights of the Local Group and those of our surrounding communities are upheld and respected. We are encouraged that the Constitutional Court will ultimately determine the constitutionality of the referendum using the appropriate legal process provided for within Ecuadorian law and that the referendum will be suspended until such time.
Which sounds and fine and dandy, but of course the real reason that INV and the pro-mining government were happy about the suspension is that they know that if it went ahead, the anti-mining side would almost certainly win. Local politicos have estimated that the vote will go 70% to 80% in the anti’s favour and that sounds right on to me. But at that point (and being unversed in the finer points of Ecuadorean law) I too thought that the pro-mining lobby in Ecuador along with the obvious support of the Moreno government had run a ring around the anti-mining lobby and the local activists, that the referendum would not go ahead and the whole issue was set to be caught in legal limbo, where the vote could not go ahead.
However, Friday brought a big turnaround to the story when the CNE ruled (5) that the judge in Quito had acted illegally in suspending the vote. Not only that, but his ruling was in flagrant violation of the country’s election laws, to the point where the CNE are now demanding his resignation as a sitting judge. The President of the CNE has asked the body that rules over all legislative bodies, the TCE, to kick out the judge (6) and the TCE has already agreed with the CNE’s argument on this. It now looks as though the judge, somehow “persuaded” by either/or mining world and government, tried to force through a ruling to scupper the referendum at the last minute and ignoring the statute which says (and is extremely well-known in Ecuador) that no legal body can affect the running of an election once the official election period has begun. Here’s what the president of the CNE said on the subject (7) (translated):
“When we in an electoral process, no outside authority to the organization can intervene, directly or indirectly, with the electoral processes nor in its functions. The electoral process is ratified and will continue to March 24th, according to everything as planned in the calendar.”
The bottom line is that the referendum in Girón will go ahead next Sunday, March 24th, and it will be a massive surprise if the anti-mining side loses. What happens then is anyone’s guess, though I strongly suspect the pro-mining side (which includes the national government) will argue that the result is invalid because a locally-made decision cannot supersede national law. However, by that time the officially sanctioned vote will be in the books and on the record, providing highly significant backing for the local communities who have opposed the project for literally decades. How any mining company can claim support for its project after such a vote is beyond me, a prerequisite for permitting and approval in Ecuador.
In the end, the government of Ecuador is worried that Loma Larga will be blocked (one of the five official strategically important mine projects) but is far more worried that the upcoming vote create a precedent in Ecuador for referendum-type votes on mining projects. This is the reasoning they used in the fight against the referendum and it’s also something they pointed out during the 24 hours last week when it seemed the vote wouldn’t happen. On this score I have plenty of sympathy with the Lenín Moreno administration because even though they have made a big mistake in trying to ram through an unpopular project against the will of the local community, the can of worms it now opens will potentially affect every mining project in the country. It will certainly be used by every single indigenous pressure group and anti-mining NGO as a weapon against progress and new developments.
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