On Sunday, the National Electoral Council of the Ecuador announced the results of the runoff for the presidential mandate from 2025 to 2029. Outgoing president Daniel Noboa came out victorious, winning 55% of the votes, while his opponent, Luisa González, dragged behind with 44% of the votes. González immediately declared electoral fraud, citing a series of irregularities, including the Noboa declaration of an “state of exception” in seven strategic provinces two days before the elections. Now, the world asks: which scenarios emerge in equator given the deepening of the country’s political polarization?
Two weeks ago, during the last section of the runoff campaign, US President Donald Trump received Noboa in Mar-A-Lago in private. Although the details of this meeting were not made public, Noboa seems to have received the “green light” to accelerate the country’s authoritarian drift. After this meeting, a series of actions of the Noboa government highlighted this tour. Although Trump has ceased to explicitly approve Noboa, the mysterious meeting symbolized the adoption by Noboa of the “Trump Way”: a style of “right -wing populist” which is based on blackmail like its central tool. Noboa has left the meeting by promising that the United States would exclude Ecuadorians from the mass deportation lists – something that Washington has never confirmed – a critical problem for a country in which a large percentage of the population receives funds from abroad, especially from the United States.
The threat of mass deportations has been instrumentalized to influence the vote. Noboa has exploited the fear that Ecuadorian migrants find themselves in detention centers like Guantanamo or prisons in Salvador – thus compromising the crucial flow of funds. This blackmail, although subtle, has struck a nerve: the equator has been a producer of migrants for decades, and the United States has long been the most sought after.
During the first voting round on February 9, Noboa was surprised by a “technical link” with González, the candidate of the Citizen Revolution (RC) party. In the following weeks, González obtained unprecedented support from the native movement Pachakutik, which collected 5% of the votes in the first round and historically faced the RC. Faced with the mounting pressure, Noboa needed to overthrow the campaign. To do this, he had to put more “meat on fire”, which meant to offer spectacular responses to the greatest concern of Ecuadorians: criminal violence.
After winning less votes than González in the first round, the first thing Noboa did was to hire Erik Prince, founder of the controversial mercenaries Blackwater. Prince, who arrived in equator in early April, interfered directly in the electoral campaign, which sparked a media offensive against González.
Then, two days before the vote on Sunday runoff, Noboa decreed an “exceptional state” of sixty days in seven of the twenty-four provinces of the country, as well as in the Metropolitan district of Quito. All these territories are strategic in the electoral arena, including the districts that support RC. The decree grants an improvement in military powers, suspends the right to the free assembly and authorizes the searches without a mandate. In addition, Noboa withdrew the details of González’s public security the day before the election of runoff, a decision widely interpreted as a tactic of political intimidation in a country where violence against political figures has increased. In 2023, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated just two weeks before the elections, and dozens of mayors and members of the Congress have been killed in the past five years.
Son of the richest man in the equator, Noboa was chosen unexpectedly by the conservative sectors during the first round of the elections in 2023, after former President Guillermo Lasso triggered early elections through a constitutional mechanism called him called MUERTE CRUZADAor “mutual death”. Now Noboa has positioned himself to serve until 2033 if he is able to obtain a re -election in 2029.
Noboa represents a stability opportunity for a right wing which, so far, has failed to consolidate its position. This follows the short-term administrations of Lenín Moreno (2017-2021), which broke up with the party of former president Rafael Correa but ruled weakly, and Lasso (2021-2023), which was forced to call the early elections following protests and threats of dismissal. Noboa now ends the term lasso.
According to a 2010 constitutional decision, when a head of state ends the mandate of their predecessor following the application of a Cruzada Muerte, this period does not count towards the limits of the constitutional duration. This means that Noboa will be eligible for re -election in 2029.
To this end, Noboa courts Washington’s support by offering two strategically located military bases: in Manta and in 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 American army from the 2009 region. Meanwhile, the Galápagos Islands, located off the Pacific Ocean, are near China-Peru Trade ITime-stimulated by Chinese Chinese Megaport in Chacay, north of Lima, President XI Jinping in Noverne 2024.
In the midst of a generalized climate of violence, and under the pretext of fighting drug gangs – which became the Ecuador, a country that had remained relatively immune to the ravages of drug trafficking, unlike its neighbors in Colombia and Peru, to an unprecedented political violence site – Noboa promotes exceptional measures which also aim to neutralize its political rivals. It is enough to recall the RAID of the Noboa administration on the Embassy of Mexico in Quito in 2024 to arrest the former vice-president of the era of the Cora, Jorge Glass, who triggered a diplomatic break with Mexico which is not resolved. Noboa strategically blurs the line between the fight against drug trafficking and the targeting of its political opponents – a tactic that he could continue with even greater vigor than the official results have been announced. Given the RC party’s refusal to recognize the results, a new climbing of political conflicts seems likely.
González claimed fraud on Monday, refused to recognize the result, called for a recount and described the president of “dictator”. The RC is the majority party in the National Assembly and has a large number of governors (nine of the twenty-three) and mayors (50 out of 221). González’s biggest challenge is now to maintain the party, because several RC leaders who recognize it as their candidate have chosen to accept the results.
Before the vote, González created an unprecedented alliance with an old adversary: the powerful native movement, a political force whose mass mobilizations have overturned governments in the past (like Jamil Mahuad in 2000 and Lucio Guérrez in 2005) and brought others, such as the collapse of Lenín Moreno (2017-2021), for the Brink de Collapse. In October 2019, Moreno was forced to move the government’s seat in the midst of massive demonstrations. The same thing has happened with the government of Lasso, which finally called the early elections due to irg Levantability conditions.
For the law of the equator, these episodes have represented unsuccessful attempts to consolidate the long -term rule. Now, they turn to Noboa to deliver a sustainable conservative project capable of resisting the inevitable waves of protest that will emerge from progressive sectors in response to its neoliberal and repressive program. Social movements – in particular the Confederation of Aboriginal Nations of the Ecuador (Conaie) – denounced a press release published on Wednesday Noboa for a severe economic adjustment and the expansion of large -scale mining projects.
This coalition between Correísmo and the native movement could ignite a major political crisis if it decides to openly challenge the government, as González has indicated it since the night of runoff. All this indicates a new volatile chapter of Ecuadorian policy, just as Noboa seeks to impose disputed economic and geopolitical measures, including the construction of foreign military bases, widened mining concessions and partnerships with mercenary companies.
Sunday’s result is strengthening Noboa’s conservative and authoritarian project, offering the right occasion for stability after decades of struggle to maintain power beyond isolated and cried terms.
It doesn’t matter if the allegations of fraud gain ground, what is clear is that the equator has become the first domino to fall into the region under the renewed influence of Trumpism in Latin America. Trump’s return to the White House has embarked on repressive tactics and legitimized political blackmail, and should have an impact on the upcoming elections in the region.
The equator now emerges as a regional laboratory for the rapprochement with the political style of Trump: the policy of the show (illustrated by the “Mano Dura” referendum of May 2024) and alliances with controversial actors like Erik Prince. Although there is no evidence of massive fraud, elections results reveal how Trumpism can influence democratic processes.
According to his campaign promises, Noboa’s next stage will probably be to reform the 2008 Constitution, written during the Correa administration, which will surely cause confrontation. Already, the president has articulated plans to authorize the foreign military bases in the country – expressly prohibited under the current constitution – and to tighten criminal sanctions.
But the resistance is already merged. At the end of March, the RC and the Conaie declared their opposition to the constitutional changes which “restricted the rights of nature or would violate the social achievements acquired by the indigenous, black, Cholo and Montubio peoples”. The movements fear that the multinational and intercultural nature of the current constitution will be eradicated.
The imminent question is whether these forces will come up against violently or force a tense coexistence. Meanwhile, the equator sails in turbulent waters: between the shadow of a new authoritarianism and the memory of its powerful social movement.
