Ecuador held its presidential runoff election on October 15, 2023. This runoff was the final step in an election process marked by controversy, compounding crises, and tragedy. The election was triggered after former president Guillermo Lasso dissolved parliament amidst his impeachment trial. Ecuador is entrenched in social, political, and security crises, the latter of which came into the spotlight when presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated while campaigning. Following the first round of elections on August 20, 2023, two candidates, Daniel Noboa, and Luisa Gonzalez, emerged as leaders going into the runoff. Noboa won the runoff election and will now lead a new government for the next 16 months, hoping to find solutions to the crises the country is facing. We asked SIS professor Jorge Daniel Vásquez some questions to help understand these elections and the impact that Noboa may have on Ecuador.

This election follows the surprising invocation of Ecuador's "Muerte Cruzada" clause in May, which dissolved parliament and triggered snap elections. The first round of elections was held on August 20. How did Ecuador's government function prior to the election? What was at stake with this election?

The declaration of Ecuador's "Muerte Cruzada" came amid social, political, and security crises. Such crises continue today as an outcome of the accumulation of corrupt practices in the political and family circles of President Guillermo Lasso, elected in 2021. In addition, the increase in homicide rates, prison massacres, and the migration crisis have worsened during his government.

At stake in the August elections was the possibility of choosing a political project capable of resolving Ecuador’s multiple crises. According to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime (OECO), in 2023, Ecuador registered a homicide rate higher than 35 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. This rate represents an increase of 528% compared to the first half of 2019. In addition, the growth of the Ecuadorian economy is unstable. According to the Central Bank of Ecuador, the Ecuadorian economy has a growth of 1.5%, which is far below the 5% needed to start improving the employment rate and reduce poverty levels in the next decade. In addition, 205,649 Ecuadorians crossed the border to Colombia in the last two years. It is estimated that 50% of these people have not returned to Ecuador. Mexico's National Migration Institute reported that, as of January 2023, they had detained 5,808 undocumented migrants from Ecuador.

The Lasso government has not only had deplorable management of the ongoing crises, but the possible linkage between State authorities, members of the security forces, and the judicial sector with the organized crime economy generated a high level of rejection and distrust among the population. The lack of concrete actions to guarantee transparency in the judicial process allowed the population to consider the government the cause of the crises. According to the polls conducted by Perfiles de Opinión in October 2022, 82.56% of Ecuadorians disapproved of Lasso's performance.

In May 2023, the National Assembly received the endorsement of the Constitutional Court to initiate the impeachment trial that would seek the removal of Lasso on the grounds of embezzlement in the contract between the Flota Petrolera Ecuatoriana (Ecuadorian Oil Fleet) and the offshore company Amazonas Tanker Pool. The opposition coalition that promoted the impeachment trial was led by the progressive legislative bloc of the Citizen Revolution movement, the political party of former President Rafael Correa. Lasso presented his defense in the plenary of the National Assembly on May 6; however, the following day, Lasso decreed the "Muerte Cruzada": the dismissal of the Assembly and the request to the National Electoral Council to call for general elections. The elected candidate would replace Lasso for the remainder of his term.

Ecuador's crises have deepened after the "Muerte Cruzada" declaration in May. The general elections were held on August 20 after a short electoral campaign timeframe, and eight candidates ran for Office.

Prior to the first round of elections on August 20, one of the candidates, Fernando Villavicencio, was assassinated. How did that event impact the country and the election?

The assassination of Fernando Villavicencio was a turning point in the Ecuadorian elections. State security forces, through the Ecuadorian Police, were responsible for ensuring Villavicencio's safety. Along with Villavicencio, seven politicians of different political tendencies were assassinated in Ecuador between August 2022 and September 2023. They are: Bolívar Vera, Agustín Intriago, Ríder Sánchez, Jairo Olaya, Omar Menéndez, Julio César Farachio, and Gerardo Delgado.

To date, the Attorney General's Office has not made public the results of the investigations into Villavicencio's murder. At the same time, the U.S. government has offered a five-million-dollar reward to anyone who contributes information leading to the arrest of those responsible. Six people captured by the Ecuadorian Police and allegedly involved in the attack on Villavicencio were killed while detained in prison. No information about the investigation of these murders has been released to the public.

As a result of Villavicencio's murder, the presidential candidates emphasized their proposals to address the security crisis in their political campaigns. All candidates expressed their solidarity with Villavicencio's family and demanded the State carry out the necessary investigations to prosecute the perpetrators of the crime. However, several politicians close to Villavicencio imputed Villavicencio's murder to the Citizen Revolution movement, represented by candidate Luisa González. Villavicencio held an open political criticism against the Citizen Revolution; however, private media used Villavicencio's murder to discredit and whip up hate speeches against the movement of Luisa Gonzalez, the main political adversary of the right-wing parties in these elections.

Daniel Noboa's success in the October 15 run-off election may have come as a surprise due to his lackluster performance in early polls. How did he gain so much traction, and what are his major goals for his term?

In the first electoral round, Noboa obtained 23.47% of the votes. He finished second after Luisa Gonzalez of the Citizen Revolution Party, who received 33.61%. The scenario for the second round would be different since Noboa's candidacy had a greater margin of growth due to the possibility of unifying the diverse right-wing proposals that competed in the first round.

After the elections, several analysts agreed that Noboa managed to capture a preference for the de-polarization woven around the borders between the followers of the Citizen Revolution, called "Correistas" (after the surname of the founder of the movement Rafael Correa), and the anti-Correistas. Indeed, the presidential debate for the first round allowed Noboa to transmit a position outside the polarization.

It is possible that Daniel Noboa, candidate of the Alianza Democrática Nacional (National Democratic Alliance), has managed to capture the vote of those who were looking for a new figure in politics in the face of a worn-out image of the Citizen Revolution. More acute comments point out that in several areas of the country, Daniel Noboa developed a campaign in continuity with the clientelist logic of the five electoral campaigns of his father, Alvaro Noboa. Alvaro Noboa is the wealthiest person in Ecuador and was a presidential candidate five times between 1998 and 2013.

Daniel Noboa's government will begin on November 25. In only 16 months of government, he must face the severe security crisis that Ecuador is going through and the social abandonment that Lasso's government has carried out. The health and public education sectors need to recover their investment. In addition, emergencies caused by the climatic alterations that Ecuador will face this year are foreseen. Daniel Noboa's government plan contemplates implementing actions and building policies to meet these needs; however, the technical capacity to carry out effective measures in the short term has yet to be demonstrated. One of his security proposals is to create barge prisons for an incarcerated population of between three and four hundred people.

Ecuador has had its fair share of political instability in recent months. Can Daniel Noboa help to stabilize the country? How might the election of Noboa influence the rest of the region?

In order to gain political stability, Noboa's government will have to address the social and economic crisis. Additionally, Noboa will have the complicated challenge of complying with the popular mandate to stop oil exploitation in the Yasuni area of the Ecuadorian Amazon. On August 20, Ecuadorians approved that the oil in the Yasuni area would be kept underground.

Dismantling the oil extraction in the Yasuni implies a reduction in the funds received by the State for oil exports. As an alternative to the economic funds that will no longer be collected, environmental groups have proposed the elimination of tax exemptions for the wealthiest economic groups in the country. However, eliminating exonerations or guaranteeing the collection of taxes from tax debtors was not part of Daniel Noboa's proposals. Exportadora Bananera Noboa (Noboa Banana Exports), which belongs to Daniel Noboa's family, maintains a debt of more than 88 million dollars in unpaid taxes to the Ecuadorian State. This information is public and can be consulted on the website of the Internal Revenue Service.

Another aspect of political stability will depend on Noboa's chances to build agreements with the different forces in the legislator's National Assembly. In the speech made by González upon recognizing her defeat on October 15, she stated that the Citizen Revolution movement would support the creation of laws and mechanisms to solve the country's crisis but that they would oppose the privatization of the health and education sectors, as well as policies of labor precarization. Noboa may look for ways to guarantee state investment in essential services and find sufficient support in the Assembly. However, this will depend on his ability to respond or confront the pressures of powerful economic groups that backed his candidacy.

At the regional level, Noboa represents the triumph of a right-wing political agenda separated from open contention in its ways of doing politics. Nevertheless, his political projection has not yet had an international scope that suggests a political capacity to influence the region. In addition, Noboa has stated that he will run for reelection in 2025, so we will see a president seeking to ensure his transition to a new term.

 

For more information on upcoming elections and election results, visit the SIS Global Elections Tracker.