While the Government of Ecuador has been preparing for the event for months, the Foreign Ministry has not yet specified how many leaders will attend “for security and other private reasons.”

Local media reported that only six of the more than 20 leaders are expected to attend, including the King of Spain, Felipe VI; and the presidents of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, and of Andorra, Xavier Espot.

If so, that would be the lowest turnout in the history of those Summits, which began in 1991.

The newspaper La Hora commented that this fact shows the lack of capacity to convene by the government of President Daniel Noboa.

One explanation for this would be, among other factors, the Ecuadorian government’s diplomatic dilemmas, including the invasion of uniformed men into the Mexican Embassy in Quito by order of Noboa to arrest former vice-president, Jorge Glas.

At the moment, the pre-high-level meetings are already underway.

According to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry, the national coordinators and those responsible for cooperation of the attending nations had a successful day on Tuesday to build the elements of the Cuenca Declaration, a document that will be adopted on Friday, at the end of the event.

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