Creating Opportunities

Creating Opportunities (Spanish name Creando Oportunidades, CREO, the acronym also being the Spanish word for "I believe") is an center-right Ecuadorian political movement founded in January 2012[5] and participated in the 2013 presidential elections with Guillermo Lasso as their candidate for president.

Creating Opportunities Creando Oportunidades (CREO)
President	César Monge
Founder	Guillermo Lasso
Founded	January 2012
Headquarters	Av. Quito 2502 y Gomez Rendon, Guayaquil, Ecuador
Ideology	Liberal conservatism[1][2]
Political position	Center-right[3][4]
Regional affiliation	Union of Latin American Parties
International affiliation	None
Seats in the National Assembly	20 / 137
Politics of Ecuador Political parties Elections

Generally considered a centre-right conservative outfit, CREO's candidate ran on a centrist platform: his economic development model was mainly market-oriented and favoring entrepreneurship, but also promised state support to micro-enterprises and upgrading of education. Lasso promoted an independent judiciary and free speech (the opposition and civil rights organizations consider judicial autonomy and press freedom to be threatened under the administration of President Correa).[6]

In the 2013 presidential election, Lasso was placed second with 22.7% of the votes, having been endorsed also by the Social Christian Party and the Madera de Guerrero movement of Guayaquil's mayor Jaime Nebot. In the simultaneous election for the National Assembly, the party won 11.4% of the votes and 11 out of 137 seats. Hence, it is the major opposition force in parliament.

In the 2014 local elections, CREO obtained 22 mayorships, including those of provincial capitals such as Azogues, Riobamba and Tena, besides the Loja prefecture. In that same year, CREO lead the creation of "Ecuador Compromise" (Compromiso Ecuador) formed by various opposition groups and guilds, including the Migrants Movement lead by Luis Felipe Tilleria, and supported by several political figures from across the Ecuadorian political spectrum. The context of its creation was a government-sponsored proyect for a series of constitutional amendments by the National Assembly, which led to the opposition collective to unsuccessfully ask for a referendum on the matter, with special focus on the amendment that would pave the way for elected incumbents to seek indefinite reelection. In September 2016, CREO was admitted as member of the Union of Latin American Parties, the regional subsidiary of the International Democrat Union.[7]

For the 2017 general elections Lasso and his movement agreed with the SUMA party to form the "Alliance for Change" (Alianza por el Cambio) to run on an anti-Correa platform, along with several other smaller groups. [8]