Elections in Ecuador: there will be a ballot between the correísta Luisa González and the businessman Daniel Noboa

2023-08-21 06:17:22

In the midst of an impressive deployment of military and police forces, which included private security personnel in some hot spots in Guayaquil, Ecuadorians voted this Sunday to elect their new president. After 90.66% of the votes were counted, the candidate of the correísta Partido de la Revolución Ciudadana, Luisa González, was the most voted, with 33.11% of the votes, but she will go to a runoff with the right-wing candidate Daniel Noboa , of Acción Democrática Nacional, with 23.96%.

The vote was carried out calmly, although the National Electoral Council (CNE) denounced a cyber attack on telematic voting abroad.

Also read: Between drug trafficking fear and political crisis, Ecuador elects president: the profile of the main candidates

González, 45, is supported by former President Rafael Correa, sentenced to 8 years in prison in 2020 for corruption and currently in exile in Belgium. Noboa, 35, is a right-wing businessman from the banana sector who entered the second round as a surprise.

Behind are the journalist Christian Zurita, who replaced the assassinated Fernando Villavicencio, from the right-wing Construye movement, with 16.47%; Jan Topic, nicknamed the “Ecuadorian Nayib Buleke”, with 14.64%; the right-wing ex-vice president Otto Sonnenholzner, from Avanza, with 7.13%, and the left-wing indigenist Yaku Pérez, from the Claro que se Puede movement, with 3.86%.

Further back are Xavier Herbas, from Movimiento Reto; and Bolívar Armijos, from the Movimiento Amigo, with less than 1%.

How is the electoral system of Ecuador and how is the ballotage taking shape?

To win in the first round, at least 40% of the votes plus a 10-point difference over the second most voted are required. The ballot is scheduled for October 15.

González was the wide favorite to prevail in the first round. His rival in the ballot will be the businessman from the banana sector Daniel Noboa, who placed second in a vote that was not predicted by any survey. “It is the surprise of the election. The Noboa surname is no stranger to politics. His father (Álvaro Noboa) was a candidate five times, ”the former director of the newspaper El Comercio, Fernando Larenas, told TN.

Daniel Noboa in TN

As he stated, “Noboa surprised in the presidential debate. Maybe Topic’s radicalism affected him” in the final sprint. “Noboa seemed more conciliatory,” he noted.

Meanwhile, correísmo sources close to the presidential candidate admitted to TN that the October ballot will be “hard”.

Military guarded the ballot boxes in Ecuador (Photo: REUTERS/Henry Romero)By: REUTERS

Among the correísta supporters, a very difficult second round is envisioned. They fear that Noboa will drag down the votes of “like-minded” candidates, such as Zurita, Topic and Sonnenholzner. Between the three they add more than 37% of the votes in this first round.

But Larenas recalled that Álvaro Noboa, Daniel’s father, “has already been defeated by Correísmo on two occasions. Zurita would choose to annul the vote, I find it difficult for him to support Noboa. Otto Sonnenholzne can support Noboa, Topic I don’t know, because he also depends on the Social Christian Party, ”he explained.

The great challenge of the new president of Ecuador: security in the face of the advance of drug trafficking

The winner of these elections must complete the term of the outgoing president, Guillermo Lasso, until May 2025. He will only be in power for 16 months and will have the difficult mission of trying to pacify a country hit by drug-trafficking violence. The current president called early elections after dissolving Congress in May.

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This Sunday the Ecuadorians also elected 137 assembly members. In addition, they pronounced themselves in two popular consultations: one on whether or not to stop oil extraction in a sector of the Amazon jungle and another to authorize or prohibit the exploitation of minerals in the Chocó Andino forests, in the surroundings of Quito.

The elections took place amid increasing violence from drug gangs, which dominate large parts of the country, such as the port city of Guayaquil and the coastal regions bordering Colombia. In some voting centers in Guayaquil there was private security, reported the newspaper Expreso.