The Correa candidate maintains that “this victory” is for Ecuadorians despite the technical tie
The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, and the candidate of the Correa Citizen Revolution Movement, Luisa Gonzalez, are heading towards the second round of the presidential elections, called for April 13, after having obtained a virtual technical tie during the electoral day this Sunday, according to 90.44 percent of the votes counted.
Noboa, who is just half a percentage point ahead of her rival, has so far obtained 44.33 percent of the votes, while Gonzalez has 43.85 percent of the ballots, according to the data provided by the National Electoral Council (CNE).
The president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint, has indicated in a press conference that “if this trend continues” Ecuadorians will return to the polls on April 13, since it is necessary that one of the two candidates exceed the 50 percent threshold to declare victory in the first round. The participation rate has been 83.38 percent.
While Noboa has not spoken about the preliminary results of this first round, González has addressed his supporters together with his candidate for vice president, Diego Borja, and has emphasized that “the historic vote of the Citizen Revolution of the last ten years has been broken.”
González, who has expressed that “this triumph” is for Ecuadorians, has stressed that although they are “in a technical tie,” the trend is that “they will continue to grow in votes and Noboa will continue to fall in votes,” since the ballot boxes of some of the Correa strongholds were still to be counted.
He also called on the other political forces to build a government plan for the benefit of the entire population, although it should be noted that the only one he named in his speech was the indigenous leader Leonidas Iza, whom he congratulated for having “received an important vote.”
The other 14 candidates are far behind the two favourites. Only two have exceeded one percent of the votes: in third place is the indigenous leader Leonidas Iza, with 5.21 percent of the votes, and the environmental activist Andrea Gonzalez, with 2.7 percent.
Iza, in fact, was one of the candidates who denounced favourable treatment towards Noboa in view of the elections: “(The country) has tolerated that they have broken the Constitution, that the Government has spent more than 130 million dollars in this electoral process. Who can compete with this electoral machinery and with state resources?” he questioned.
Noboa, heir to Ecuador’s richest family, became the youngest Ecuadorian president in history in October 2023 by winning early presidential elections following the fall of his predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, who stepped aside amid allegations of corruption. Noboa therefore took office knowing that his term would be less than a year and a half.
Using the initials of ADN, Noboa has governed these 16 months in a complex context in terms of security, with a rise in violence at the hands of armed groups and which led to the declaration of a state of emergency in January 2024 after members of these groups attacked a television station while it was broadcasting live. Ecuador has seen how in recent years it has gone from being considered one of the safest countries in the world to being the most violent in South America.
In parallel to these presidential elections, the Ecuadorian population is also called upon to choose the new configuration of the National Assembly, the country’s unicameral Parliament, which from now on consists of 151 assembly members and, in recent years, has always had a predominant presence of parties that have defended the ideas of former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017). This has made governability more difficult and aggravated instability in the country in recent years.
