Hard-right incumbent President Daniel Noboa and left-wing challenger Luisa Gonzalez are set for a second-round run-off in Ecuador’s presidential election, with preliminary results showing the pair neck and neck.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that with 80 percent of the ballots from Sunday’s first-round vote tallied, Noboa had 44.4 percent. Gonzalez followed closely, securing a better-than-anticipated 44.1 percent.
The 14 other candidates in the race, dominated by a teetering economy and drug-fuelled security crisis, trailed far behind.
“If the trend is maintained, Ecuadoreans will return to the ballot box on April 13,” CNE head Diana Atamaint said at a news conference.
Surprise surge
The performance of 47-year-old Gonzalez, a political protege of former President Rafael Correa from the left-wing Citizen Revolution Movement party, was a surprise, driven by a surge in support.
She told elated supporters in Quito that the race was a “statistical tie”, adding that they had achieved a “great victory”.
“We have won,” she declared.
Pre-election surveys had predicted a stronger result for Noboa, the 37-year-old son of a billionaire banana magnate who assumed office 14 months ago to finish his predecessor’s term.
He had hoped to garner the 50 percent of votes needed to avoid a head-to-head contest.
Still, the incumbent’s supporters were jubilant on Sunday, lighting fireworks in Quito and Guayaquil, the country’s two largest cities.
“We came to support the president, we want him to support us and change the country,” said 52-year-old secretary Myriam Medrano in Quito.
Referendum
The contest was widely viewed as a referendum on the country’s stalled economy and Noboa’s iron-fisted – or “mano dura” – approach to crime in the face of soaring murder, kidnappings and extortion driven by drug cartels.
Noboa has taken bold executive action to crack down on violent crime, including declaring a state of emergency and deploying the army to the streets.
Human rights groups claim that the aggressive use of armed forces has led to abuse, including the murder of four boys whose charred bodies were recently found near an army base.
On election day, Noboa deployed heavily armed soldiers to polling stations across the country and shuttered the borders with Colombia and Peru.
Noboa has also been embroiled in a long-running spat with his vice president, most recently over whether and how he could take campaign leave.
This week, the Constitutional Court ruled invalid two decrees that Noboa used to take campaign leave in the first round of the election. That is likely to complicate his ability to name an interim vice president and campaign ahead of the run-off.
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