Incumbent Daniel Noboa was holding a healthy and unexpectedly comfortable lead in Ecuador’s presidential race on Sunday, with 56% of valid votes counted. Naboa leads leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez by 12 points.
Incumbent Daniel Noboa, who has been president for just over 16 months, faced leftist Gonzalez, whom he beat in a 2023 race to become Ecuador’s leader.
Noboa, of the National Democratic Action party, finished 16,746 votes ahead of his rival in the first round in February.
Noboa has essentially stayed on in a caretaker role since 2023, when his predecessor stepped down amid impeachment proceedings.
More than 13 million people eligible to vote
With concerns of election fraud high, both candidates, and Gonzalez’s mentor, , have urged observers to be vigilant.
Polls opened at 07:00 local time (14:00 CEST, 12:00 GMT) and closed at 17:00 local time (00:00 Monday CEST, 22:00 GMT).
More than 13 million people are eligible to vote, which is mandatory for adults up to the age of 65. Failure to vote results in a $46 (€40.5) fine. It is optional for people aged 16 and 17, and for those over 65.
Who are the candidates?
In 2023, Noboa and Gonzalez were largely unknown to most voters as they sought the presidency for the first time.
They were first-term lawmakers in May 2023, when then-President , .
Noboa, 37, is heir to a multibillion-dollar banana fortune, while Gonzalez, 47, of the Citizens’ Revolution party, is a lawyer and a former lawmaker.
How have Noboa and Gonzalez said they will govern?
Noboa has predicted 4% economic growth in 2025 if his policies, which include an increase in tax and some austerity measures, are to continue.
He pledged to prevent new energy cuts and boost the oil sector with private investment, while also having taken recent measures like distributing payouts to people affected by an oil spill and small businesses hit by flooding.
“Ecuadoreans want real change,” Noboa said at his final campaign event in Guayaquil on Thursday.
“This Sunday we will teach a lesson to that failed revolution, to those bad officials who attack us, to all the mafias that have taken our peace and to all the corruption that has stopped us moving ahead,” he added.
On the other hand, Gonzalez has promised to revive social programs enacted by Correa during his decade in power.
“Has your life gotten better in these 15 months? Or worse? You have the answer: in your wallet, in your house, in your heart,” she said in a Thursday social media video.
“This Sunday we choose between continuing to fall and getting up together to defend hope.”
Gonzalez would be the first woman elected president of Ecuador if she wins.
How has Noboa clamped down on gangs?
In January 2024, Noboa said Ecuador was in a , which allowed him to deploy thousands of soldiers to the streets to combat gangs.
People were charged with terrorism counts for any alleged ties to organized crime groups.
Some of Noboa’s heavy-handed crime-fighting tactics have come under scrutiny for testing the limits of laws and norms of governing.
The homicide rate in Ecuador dropped from 46.18 per 100,000 people in 2023, to 38.76 per 100,000 people in 2024. However, the rate remained far higher than the 6.85 homicides per 100,000 people seen in 2019.
What are the key concerns for voters?
Voters are primarily worried about the violence and a spike in crime tied to the trafficking of cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru.
Both candidates have promised tough-on-crime policies, better equipment for law enforcement and international help to fight drug cartels and local criminal groups.
Murders, gun smuggling, fuel theft, extortion and other crimes carried out by local criminal groups allied with Mexican cartels and the Albanian mafia have spiked, while the economy has struggled to recover post-pandemic.
Unemployment has risen too.
Edited by: Roshni Majumdar, Wesley Dockery
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