The incumbent head of Ecuador and leader of the centre-right party National Democratic Action (66 seats out of 151 in parliament) Daniel Noboa has won the second round of the presidential election. After processing more than 92 per cent of ballots, he gained 55.6% of the popular vote, the CEC results show. His rival, Luisa Gonzalez, president of the leftist Civic Revolution Movement party (66 mandates), scored 44%; she refuses to recognise the results of the vote and demands a recount. Turnout was over 83%. Immediately after the vote, Gonzalez, in front of supporters, accused her opponent of abuse of power and ‘blatant’ electoral fraud. A video of her speech was published on her X page.
In response, Noboa called it ‘shameful’ to accuse Gonzalez of fraud when there was an 11-12% difference in the popular vote. Noboa’s victory came amid an unprecedented upsurge in violence in Ecuador, caused by the escape from prison of the leader of the country’s largest criminal group Los Choneros, Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, in January 2024. Since then, there have been periodic clashes between law enforcement forces and armed bandits throughout the country, and the republic is in a regime of internal armed conflict.
Security was therefore a key theme in the candidates’ programmes. And although Ecuador’s internal armed conflict regime was introduced by Noboa, during the election campaign he emphasised that under his leadership the homicide rate had fallen from 46.18 per 100,000 people in 2023 to 38.76 in 2024 (with only 6.85 homicides in 2019). Nevertheless, Ecuador remains the most dangerous country in Latin America by this measure, according to Insight Crime.
In foreign policy, Noboa plans to build friendly relations with the US and lift Socialist President Rafael Correa’s ban (2007-2017) on foreign military bases in the country to subsequently bring in US, European and Brazilian military personnel to fight organised crime.
Noboa, the son of the founder of the country’s largest banana corporation, began his political career in 2021 with his election as a deputy to the National Assembly. Two years later, at the age of 35, he won a snap presidential election after President Guillermo Lasso resigned to avoid possible impeachment over suspected corruption. Noboa finished the remaining 16 months of his predecessor’s term in that post.
The growth of violence in Ecuador began even before Noboa, so many voters did not associate this problem with the president, but perceived him as a man capable of ending it. The main factor in Noboa’s victory was the rejection by most Ecuadorians of previous President Correa’s ideology, which is shared by Gonzalez. Gonzalez’s non-recognition of the election results is unlikely to lead to an increase in protest activity in the country.
