Guayaquil, Ecuador – Ecuador’s presidential election Sunday is becoming a recurring repetition of the 2023 race in which voters chose younger, conservative billionaires than the most influential presidential protégé of the century.
President Daniel Novore and Luisa Gonzalez are clear frontrunners within a pool of 16 candidates. All have pledged to voters to reduce the widespread crime that breathed life into a new normal that would drive their lives four years ago.
The surge in violence in South American countries is linked to human trafficking of cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru. With many voters becoming victims of crime, personal and collective losses will be the determinant of the four-year third president in determining whether he can turn Ecuador.
Voting is required in Ecuador. In Guayaquil’s port city, people lined up outside public universities under light rain, where tens of thousands were expected to vote.
Crime, gangster, fear tor
“To me, this president is disastrous,” said 35-year-old Marta Barres. He went to the voting centre with three teenagers. “Can he change things in another four years? No. He’s not doing anything.”
Valles, who has to pay $25 a month to a local gang to avoid harassment and bad things, said she’s voting for Gonzalez because she believes she can reduce crime all over the place and improve the economy. .
Over 13.7 million people are eligible to vote. To win perfectly, a candidate must have 50% of the vote, or at least 40%, leading the nearest challenger 10 points. If necessary, leaked elections will be held on April 13th.
Novoa defeated Gonzalez in the October 2023 Snap election leak. This was caused by the decision of then-President Guillermo Lasso to dissolve the Parliament and, as a result, shortened his own mission. Former President Rafael Correa mentees Novoa and Gonzalez served only brief stints as lawmakers before the start of the 2023 presidential election.
Testing legal restrictions and norms of governance
Novoa, 37, is the heir to a property based on the banana trade. He opened an event organisation company at the age of 18 and joined his father, Noboa Corp., where he served as managers in transportation, logistics and commercial areas. His political career began in 2021 when he won a seat in Parliament and chaired the Economic Development Committee.
Under his president, the murder rate fell from 46.18 per 100,000 in 2023 to 38.76 per 100,000 last year. Still, it’s way higher than 6.85 per 100,000 people in 2019, and some of Noboa’s unprohibited crime strategies are being scrutinized both domestically and internationally to test the limitations of law and norms of control.
His questioned tactics include the state of internal armed conflict he declared in January 2024 to mobilize the army where organized crime has taken hold, and the police against the Mexican embassy in the capital last year. Approval of the attack, Kito arrests Vice President Jorge Glass, a convicted criminal and fugitive who lived there for several months.
However, his frontal approach also has voted for him.
“My vote was for Novoa because he maintains a direct conflict between his skills and the armed drug trafficking group and corruption,” said Pablo Vot, a retired doctor in Quito. I said that.
“Things won’t change.”
Gonzalez, 47, led Ecuador from 2007 to 2017, free spending and leading Ecuador with conservative policies, becoming increasingly authoritarian over his past few years as president. He was put in prison in 2020 for absent from a corruption scandal.
Gonzalez was a lawmaker from 2021 when Lasso dissolved the National Assembly until May 2023. She was unknown to most voters until the Correa party chose her as the presidential candidate for the Snap election.
Waiting for her turn to vote, architecture student Kayla Torres said she has yet to decide who she will vote for. She said that she could lower crime across Ecuador due to the deep corruption of the government.
“I wouldn’t be here if I could,” Torres said. Torres has witnessed three robberies on public buses over the past four years, barely letting the carjack go away in December. “Things won’t change.”
Torres added that criminality had an impact on her research as her neighbors gang targeted people walking down the street just after 10pm. She said her family is not forced to pay the gang’s monthly fear tor fees, but the group urged their neighbors to vote for a particular candidate.
“In my area, they leave flyers on the doors of every house and say they have to face consequences if they don’t vote for Luisa,” Torres said.
