Ecuador set for run-off vote as leftist candidate pushes president close in tight election
Ecuador’s center-right President Daniel Noboa is likely to fall short of securing an outright majority in the country’s general election, according to preliminary results Sunday, setting the stage for a run-off vote against his nearest leftist rival.
The second-round vote, provisionally scheduled for April, will decide if the Latin American country will stick with Noboa’s tough crackdown on crime or seek an alternative voice in Luisa González amid an unprecedented security crisis fueled by the international drug trade and a steep homicide rate.
Following Sunday’s tightly contested election, Noboa lead the 16 candidates with 44.6% of the vote after more than three quarters of ballots were counted, according to election officials.
González tallied 44.02% in the preliminary count.
“If the trend continues, Ecuadorians will return to the polls on April 13,” Ecuador’s National Electoral Council said.
According to Ecuador’s Constitution, a candidate needs more than 50% of the vote to win the first round outright, or 40% with a margin of at least 10 percentage points over the next closest candidate.
Noboa, the 37-year-old son of a banana tycoon, won a 2023 snap election on the back of a promise to rein in the rampant crime that has transformed the once tranquil country into one plagued by violence and turf wars between drug cartels.
That vote was called after his predecessor Guillermo Lasso resigned to avoid impeachment following a series of crises.
But Noboa’s 14 months in office have been no less turbulent. Ecuador’s youngest ever president has declared numerous states of emergency, deployed military units to tackle gang activity, and began construction on a new maximum-security prison after an infamous criminal leader escaped from custody last year.
González, who was the runner-up in the 2023 race, is a close confidante of former leftist President Rafael Correa, a dominant figure in Ecuador’s politics.
Running on a campaign to “Revive Ecuador,” González has pledged to tackle the drug trade just as vigorously as Noboa.
She hailed Sunday’s preliminary results as a “great victory,” and said she was confident of winning any run-off.
“Daniel Noboa represents fear, we represent hope, the change to transform this country,” González said, according to CNN en Español.
The main challenges the next government will face when it takes office in May are security, the economy, a nationwide energy crisis and international relations.
“Security is the biggest problem the government has had, but in a country with huge social inequalities like Ecuador, I believe that among the priorities of the less advantaged sectors are, in addition to security, health and education,” Santiago Basabe, an analyst and professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, told CNNE.
-CNN
