Ecuador election will decide Assange’s fate
At least two presidential candidates would evict him from their London embassy
LONDON— When Ecuador holds a general election Sunday, the results could have international repercussions linked to one man thousands of miles away: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who took refuge in the country’s embassy in London nearly five years ago and who remains there.
Assange moved into the embassy in Knightsbridge, one of the British capital’s most affluent neighbourhoods, after accusations of rape in Sweden, which he has described as a coverup for a U.S. effort to extradite and try him on espionage charges.
Whether Ecuador will continue its role of reluctant warden to Assange, who was granted asylum by President Rafael Correa in 2012, hinges on the outcome of the elections. Eight candidates are seeking the presidency, and at least two have said they would evict him if they won.
If balloting reflects recent poll results, it is unlikely that Assange would need to pack his bags anytime soon: While Correa’s preferred successor, Lenin Moreno, is the frontrunner, polls indicate that the election is likely to go to a second round, meaning that Assange’s fate may not be decided until a runoff in early April.
If Guillermo Lasso of Creating Opportunities or Cynthia Viteri of the Social Christian Party pull off an upset, however, it could be a different fate altogether.
“As president of this nation, I need the money used for his upkeep, for example to pay for my children’s school lunches,” Viteri said about Assange, the newspaper El Comercio reported Thursday. “I withdraw his asylum for the purchase, in my opinion, of Mr. Assange’s silence.” She did not elaborate. Viteri was a distant third in two recent polls, with about 14 per cent of support.
In the past, Lasso has supported Assange’s stay at the embassy, but he expressed a different view in comments to the Guardian last week.
“The Ecuadorean people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear,” he said. “We will cordially ask Senor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate.”
Ecuador’s foreign minister, Guillaume Long, has rejected the idea that Assange might be forced to leave the embassy.
“We’ve ratified his asylum several times, and under this government, there is no decision to revoke it at all,” he said in an interview Friday. “Let’s not forget that Julian Assange was granted asylum on grounds of fear of possible political persecution.”
Moreno, the front-runner, did not make much of the issue of Assange’s fate during the campaign, which has focused on economic issues at a time of falling oil prices.
Speculation that Assange was overstaying his welcome grew when the embassy cut off his access to the Internet in October, shortly before U.S. elections.
WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of hacked emails from inside Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
“We didn’t want any ambiguity,” Long said of his country’s decision to cut off Assange’s online access. “We wanted it to be very clear that Ecuador’s diplomatic mission was not being used in order to interfere in the U.S. electoral process.”