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On Sunday, Ecuador’s National Electoral Council announced the results of the runoff election for the 2025 to 2029 presidential term. Incumbent president Daniel Noboa emerged victorious, earning 55 percent of the vote, while his opponent, Luisa González, trailed behind with 44 percent of the vote. González immediately declared electoral fraud, citing a series of irregularities including Noboa’s declaration of a “state of exception” in seven strategic provinces two days before the elections. Now the world is asking: What scenarios are emerging in Ecuador given the country’s deepening political polarization?
Two weeks ago, during the final stretch of the runoff campaign, US president Donald Trump privately received Noboa at Mar-a-Lago. While the details of that meeting have not been made public, Noboa appears to have received the “green light” to accelerate the country’s authoritarian drift. Following this meeting, a series of actions by the Noboa government evidenced this turn. Although Trump stopped short of endorsing Noboa explicitly, the mysterious meeting symbolized Noboa’s adoption of the “Trump Way”: a “right-wing populist” style that relies on blackmail as its central tool. Noboa left the meeting promising that the United States would exclude Ecuadorians from mass deportation lists — something Washington never confirmed — a critical issue for a country in which a significant percentage of the population receives remittances from abroad, especially from the United States.
The threat of mass deportations was instrumentalized to influence the vote. Noboa exploited the fear that Ecuadorian migrants would end up in detention centers like Guantanamo or prisons in El Salvador — thus jeopardizing the crucial flow of remittances. This blackmail, although subtle, struck a nerve: Ecuador has been a producer of migrants for decades, and the United States has long been the most sought-after destination.
In the first round of voting on February 9, Noboa was surprised by a “technical tie” with González, the candidate from the Citizen Revolution (RC) party. In the following weeks, González gained unprecedented backing from the Pachakutik indigenous movement, which garnered 5 percent of the vote in the first round and has historically clashed with the RC. Facing mounting pressure, Noboa needed to turn the campaign around. To do so, he had to put more “meat on the fire,” which meant offering spectacular responses to Ecuadorians’ foremost concern: criminal violence.
After winning fewer votes than González in the first round, the first thing Noboa did was hire Erik Prince, founder of the controversial mercenary company Blackwater. Prince, who arrived in Ecuador in early April, interfered directly in the electoral campaign, unleashing a media offensive against González.
Then, two days before the Sunday’s runoff vote, Noboa decreed a sixty-day “state of exception” in seven of the country’s twenty-four provinces, as well as in the metropolitan district of Quito. All of these territories are strategic in the electoral arena, including districts that support the RC. The decree grants enhanced military powers, suspends the right to free assembly, and authorizes warrantless searches. Furthermore, Noboa withdrew González’s public security detail the day before the runoff election, a move widely interpreted as a political intimidation tactic in a country where violence against political figures has surged. In 2023, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated just two weeks before the election, and dozens of mayors and congressmembers have been killed over the last five years.
The son of Ecuador’s richest man, Noboa was unexpectedly chosen by conservative sectors in the first round of elections in 2023, after former president Guillermo Lasso triggered snap elections through a constitutional mechanism called the muerte cruzada, or “mutual death.” Now Noboa has positioned himself to serve until 2033 if he’s able to secure reelection in 2029.
Noboa represents an opportunity for stability for a right wing that, until now, has failed to consolidate its position. This follows the short-lived administrations of Lenín Moreno (2017–2021), who broke with former president Rafael Correa’s party but governed weakly, and Lasso (2021–2023), who was forced to call early elections following protests and threats of impeachment. Noboa is now completing Lasso’s term.
According to a 2010 constitutional ruling, when a head of state completes their predecessor’s term following the application of a muerte cruzada, that period does not count toward constitutional term limits. That means Noboa will be eligible for reelection in 2029.
To this end, Noboa is courting Washington’s support by offering two strategically located military bases: in Manta and the Galápagos Islands. The proposal to reopen the Manta base revives a long-standing dispute between the United States and the Correa administration, which expelled the US military from the area in 2009. Meanwhile the Galápagos Islands, situated offshore in the Pacific Ocean, lie near the China-Peru trade route — boosted by the Chinese megaport in Chancay, north of Lima, inaugurated by Chinese president Xi Jinping in November 2024.
Amid a climate of widespread violence, and under the pretext of combating drug gangs — which have turned Ecuador, a country that had remained relatively immune to the ravages of drug trafficking, unlike its neighbors Colombia and Peru, into a site of unprecedented violence — Noboa is promoting exceptional measures that also aim to neutralize his political rivals. One only needs to recall the Noboa administration’s raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito in 2024 to arrest the former Correa-era vice president Jorge Glass, which triggered a diplomatic rupture with Mexico that remains unresolved. Noboa strategically blurs the line between the fight against drug trafficking and targeting his political opponents — a tactic he may pursue with even greater vigor now that the official results have been announced. Given the RC party’s refusal to acknowledge the results, a further escalation of political conflict appears likely.
On Monday, González claimed fraud, refused to recognize the result, called for a recount, and called the president a “dictator.” The RC is the majority party in the National Assembly and has a significant number of governorships (nine of twenty-three) and mayoralties (50 of 221). González’s biggest challenge now is to maintain party, as several RC leaders who recognize her as their candidate have chosen to accept the results.
Ahead of the vote, González established an unprecedented alliance with an old adversary: the powerful indigenous movement, a political force whose mass mobilizations have overthrown governments in the past (such as Jamil Mahuad’s in 2000 and Lucio Gutiérrez’s in 2005) and brought others, like Lenín Moreno’s (2017–2021), to the brink of collapse. In October 2019, Moreno was forced to relocate government headquarters amid massive protests. The same occurred with Lasso’s government, which ultimately called early elections due to conditions of ungovernability.
For Ecuador’s right, these episodes represented failed attempts to consolidate long-term rule. Now they look to Noboa to deliver a durable conservative project capable of resisting the inevitable waves of protest that will emerge from progressive sectors in response to his neoliberal and repressive agenda. Social movements — especially the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE) — denounced in a statement released Wednesday Noboa’s plans for harsh economic adjustment and the expansion of large-scale mining projects.
This coalition between Correísmo and the indigenous movement could ignite a major political crisis if it decides to openly challenge the government, as González has indicated since the night of the runoff. All of this points to a new, volatile chapter in Ecuadorian politics, just as Noboa seeks to impose contested economic and geopolitical measures, including the construction of foreign military bases, expanded mining concessions, and partnerships with mercenary companies.
Sunday’s result entrenches Noboa’s conservative and authoritarian project, offering the right a rare opportunity for stability after decades of struggling to maintain power beyond isolated, crisis-ridden terms.
Regardless of whether fraud allegations gain traction, what is clear is that Ecuador has become the first domino to fall in the region under the renewed influence of Trumpism in Latin America. Trump’s return to the White House has emboldened repressive tactics and legitimized political blackmail, and is likely to impact upcoming elections across the region.
Ecuador is now emerging as a regional laboratory for rapprochement with Trump’s political style: the politics of spectacle (exemplified by the May 2024 “mano dura” referendum) and alliances with controversial actors like Erik Prince. Although there is no evidence of massive fraud, the election results reveal how Trumpism can influence democratic processes.
According to his campaign promises, Noboa’s next step will likely be to reform the 2008 constitution, drafted during the Correa administration, which will surely provoke confrontation. Already, the president has articulated plans to authorize foreign military bases in the country — expressly prohibited under the current constitution — and to toughen criminal penalties.
But resistance is already coalescing. At the end of March, the RC and CONAIE declared their opposition to constitutional changes that would “restrict the rights of nature or violate the social achievements gained by Indigenous, Black, Cholo, and Montubio peoples.” The movements are concerned that the plurinational and intercultural nature of the current constitution will be eradicated.
The looming question is whether these forces will clash violently or force a tense coexistence. Meanwhile, Ecuador navigates turbulent waters: between the shadow of a new authoritarianism and the memory of its powerful social movement.
Great Job Ociel Alí López & the Team @ Jacobin Source link for sharing this story.
