Ecuador woke up today with relief after the messages of unity and non-confrontation launched last night by the elected president, the centrist Daniel Noboa, and the defeated Luisa González, standard bearer of the Citizen Revolution. “We have made history, the families chose the New Ecuador, a country with security and employment. We are going for a country of realities where surprises do not remain in the campaign and corruption is punished,” highlighted the youngest president of the Americas, 35 years, compared to the 37 of the Chilean Gabriel Boric or the 42 of the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele.
The results at the polls almost photocopied those obtained in 2021 by the current president, Guillermo Lasso, against Correism. With almost 98% of the votes counted, Noboa was left with 51.99% of the support compared to 48.01% for his rival. Almost four points compared to the 4.7% obtained by the conservative banker, who has not been able to complete his term due to harassment from drug trafficking and the opposition.
Noboa has no time to lose in the face of a year and a half full of challenges ahead. Today he himself will meet with Lasso at the Carondelet Palace to design an express transition, which will be completed in mid-December with his swearing-in. Backed by his surprising victory and by the new air that is already being breathed in his country, his first challenge is to consolidate a majority in Parliament that made the current president suffer so much.
For now, even the Correístas have offered some support, after González’s open hand, “because Ecuador needs to be united.” Another very different thing is what the great loser of the electoral process, former president Rafael Correa, thinks, who took longer than anyone else to recognize the results and did so reluctantly, a trademark of the house: “This time we did not succeed. We faced enormous powers. “One candidate was even murdered to prevent our victory.”
The roadmap prepared from the former president’s refuge in Belgium has been shattered. There will no longer be a Constituent Assembly to force his return through the front door and a pardon that redeems his seven-year prison sentence for corruption. He will not be the candidate in 2025 either, as he intended. One of the great dinosaurs of Latin American politics will continue waiting for an opportunity to regain the power he longs for.
Second consecutive defeat, which in reality is three, because Lenín Moreno began to distance himself from his former political boss in the same electoral campaign that elevated him to power in 2017. Without this progressive distancing of Moreno in the face of Correa’s revolutionary formulas, one of the main advisors of Nicolás Maduro, would not have prevailed in those elections.
Despite having remotely directed his candidate from abroad, Correa has not been able to respond to the blows of the outsider Noboa, who has grown 50 points from the days prior to the first round until Sunday’s elections. A historical growth spurt worthy of study that is already part of the continent’s electoral politics.
“Quo vadis, Correismo? The schism begins in the revolutionary tent. Some will start their own projects outside the leader’s sphere. Others will simply opt for a sterile bet. The most loyal will remain, attentive for the new contest,” he predicted. After knowing the results, the analyst Matías Abad.
For his part, the elected president of Ecuador will only enjoy a few hours to celebrate his victory. Noboa will begin today a race against time of a year and a half, the time he has at his disposal to demonstrate that he is capable of commanding the desired change to reach the 2025 presidential elections with an advantage, which he wants to attend. And win to complete his project.
The first objective is evident, cause-effect of the electoral advance: the construction of alliances in the National Assembly. The breakdown of the pact between Lasso and the Social Christian Party (PSC), his electoral ally, and the siege of the revolutionary bloc left the government bloc in a minority and muddied each of its legislative movements.
The National Democratic Alliance (ADN) party initially has only 13 seats, pending last-minute movements before the parliamentary swearing-in in December. The PSC, which supports Noboa, has 17 members, and Construye, which accompanied the murdered Fernando Villavicencio and his replacement, Christian Zurita, is close to 30. Nearby forces, such as the deputies of former vice president Otto Sonnenholzner or those of the Democratic Left, They also seem willing to reinforce the government bloc. The strength or fragility of the presidential ship in the face of the national storm of a country crushed by violence will depend on how Daniel Noboa negotiates these agreements.