2023-08-21 03:35:02
Special envoy to Quito / Correísta Luisa González and businessman Daniel Noboa will contest the presidential runoff in Ecuador on October 15, following the results of the early elections held on Sunday under extreme security measures.
The result achieved by Noboa has been the surprise of the day, since no previous survey placed him in the second round, even the Ecuadorian press remarked that the candidate had planned to receive the official count at home.
LOOK: “This country is in pieces”: Ecuadorians vote between pessimism and fear of insecurity | VIDEO
According to local analysts, his good performance in the only candidate debate, held on August 13, boosted his candidacy in the last week.
Daniel Noboa during the presidential debate on August 13. (EFE/Jose Jacome).
According to official figures from the National Electoral Council (CNE), at 81% of polling stations, Luisa González, from the Revolución Ciudadana movement, obtained 33.15% of the votes; while Daniel Noboa, from the National Democratic Alliance (ADN), got 24%. In third position is Christian Zurita, who replaced the murdered Fernando Villavicencio, with 16.42%; while in fourth place is the ex-legionnaire and security specialist businessman Jan Topic, with 14.64%.
Noboa, 35, is the son of millionaire Guayaquil businessman Álvaro Noboa, who ran for the Presidency of Ecuador five times.
In a first reaction following knowing the results, Daniel Noboa said that the second round will be a competition to prevent the return of Correísmo to power and maintained that his only alliance is with the people. But he later admitted that he will talk to Jan Topic.
“It will not be the first time that a new project turns the political ‘establishment’ around. That freshness in doing politics is what has brought us here, ”he said from Guayaquil.
Noboa considered that her candidacy has been driven by the young and female vote.
Luisa González speaks with her followers following learning the results of the presidential elections. (Photo by Galo Paguay / AFP).
For her part, Luisa González gave a speech in which she highlighted that it is the first time that a woman has obtained such a high vote in a presidential election in Ecuador and thanked her voters.
“I want to celebrate this victory on behalf of all women,” she said.
He added that Ecuador is a country that wants peace and better living conditions. He called for the unity of Ecuadorians “and to stop hate.”
The winner of the second round will replace President Guillermo Lasso for a short term that will end in May 2025.
Profile…
Luisa Gonzalez
Luisa González was born in Quito 45 years ago and is a single mother of two daughters.
She is a lawyer with a master’s degree in International Economics and Development from the Complutense University of Madrid. During the decade of the Government of Rafael Correa (2007-2017) she held different positions in the ministries of Production, Tourism, Foreign Relations, the Secretariat of Public Administration and the presidency, among others.
He has been an assembly member between May 2021 and May 2023.
Profile…
Daniel Noboa
Daniel Noboa was born in Guayaquil on November 30, 1987.
He has a long list of professional titles achieved. He studied business administration Business at New York University Stern School of Business and earned a degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. She also completed a master’s degree in Governance and Political Communication, at the Universidad George Washington.
He is the son of businessman Álvaro Noboa, who was a five-time candidate for the Presidency of Ecuador.
Ecuador went to the polls following President Lasso dissolved the National Assembly in May, appealing to the legal mechanism called Cross Death, which also implies cutting his mandate. In this way, he avoided a political trial that would end with his removal from office.
The new members of the National Assembly, whose term will end in May 2025, were also elected on Sunday.
An indigenous woman casts her vote at a polling station in Tarqui, Cuenca canton, Azuay province. (Photo by Cristina Vega RHOR / AFP).
CORREISM AND THE SECOND ROUND
Santiago Basabe, professor of Political Science at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), told El Comercio that it is very difficult for Luisa González to win the second round.
“The only candidate that she might have won is Yaku Pérez,” he asserted.
Basabe maintained that there is resistance in a significant percentage of the Ecuadorian citizenry to return power to Correísmo, but he also remarked that Rafael Correa’s party has 30% of real voters. “It is the most important political force in the country,” he said.
Regarding how the campaign will develop in the second round, Basabe considered that the issue of security will continue to be the axis. “And I think it will be more intense.”
Basabe questioned the strong-arm promises and the candidates’ references to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in the last leg of the campaign for the first round.
He also said that “countries where civil society is immobile or non-existent are more prone to the Bukele model and it seems to me that Ecuador is one of them.”
Military provide security to citizens in their polling stations during the general election day in Guayaquil. (EFE / Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda).
ELECTION DAY
Pessimism, fear, discouragement, hope. Those were the sentiments that Ecuadorians were expressing on Sunday during the early elections.
“We need to end insecurity once and for all, the crime that is harming so many Ecuadorian families,” citizen Ana Lucía told El Comercio following voting at the Mejía National Institute in Quito.
With electoral precincts heavily guarded by thousands of police and military, citizens voted without incidents. At the end of the day, the police emphasized that there was no act of bloodshed.
Where there were difficulties in voting was abroad. After the close of the elections, the president of the National Electoral Council, Diana Atamaint, admitted there were cyber attacks on the electronic voting system enabled for voters who live outside the country.
He added that the attack came from seven countries: India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Indonesia, India and Ukraine.
For her part, the chief of OAS observers, the Vice President and Foreign Minister of Panama, Isabel de Saint Malo, stated that they have been receiving “information and alerting the National Electoral Council with some issues that have arisen with telematic voting.”
Of the 13.4 million Ecuadorians authorized to vote, some 120,000 registered to do so abroad.
Diana Atamaint also reported that participation reached 82.26%, which is within the historical figures registered in previous elections.
The general commander of the police, Fausto Salinas, reported that a total of 945 people were arrested since last Friday, many of them for violating the dry law and others because they had legal requirements.
Ecuador is going through a wave of violence, extortion, kidnapping and hitmen in the streets promoted by criminal gangs that are fighting over the drug trafficking business. So far in 2023, more than 4,300 homicides have been registered, a figure that has already exceeded that registered in 2022.
The violence marked a before and following on August 9, when a group of hitmen assassinated the candidate Fernando Villavicencio as he left a rally in Quito.
The crime altered the electoral campaign and the candidates adopted the strong-arm discourse once morest insecurity, even one candidate, Jan Topic, called himself “The Ecuadorian Bukele”, in reference to the president of El Salvador and his policy once morest gangs.
Opinion
Insecurity, economic crisis and corruption must be the priorities of the next government
By Mauricio Salvador-Alarcon
Political analyst and executive director of the Citizenship and Development Foundation
Although for many 18 months it is a very short time to manage a government, it is enough to be able to show good results. This is taking into account that the Government of Guillermo Lasso will set the bar very low, since it has not shown results regarding the three main priorities identified by citizens: insecurity, the economic crisis and corruption.
In this sense, the urgent priority of the future government must be to be able to show some result in terms of security. It would be positive to at least achieve good budget execution to provide the police with inputs that allow them to fight crime. Also establish the first steps of a public security policy and a plan created with the citizens, understanding the particularities and peculiarities of each of the country’s sectors.
Regarding the economic situation, to reactivate it the conditions of the country weigh heavily. In this sense, with legal certainty and with physical security, it is possible that there will once more be some incentive for foreign and national investment to return.
In the case of corruption, although the outgoing government has talked a lot regarding the subject, even going so far as to create a secretariat, little or nothing has been done, so they will be actions mainly linked to the recovery of resources that have been lost due to corruption. those that allow the incoming government to show some result.
Finally, for whoever reaches the Presidency it will be vital to show results almost immediately, considering the possibility that they will be able to seek the full mandate in the 2025 elections, with which only with concrete and visible results for the citizens will they have any option.
On the other hand, the term heavy hand that has been used in the campaign sounds very good to the ears of a citizenry that cannot even go out to have breakfast in peace, but none of the eight presidential pairs that have used the term have specified it in their plans. of government registered at the time of registering their candidacies.
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