Daniel Noboa and Luisa González advance on the second round: what differences are there with the ballot for the presidency of Ecuador that they played in 2023

Daniel Noboa and Luisa González will once again dispute Ecuador in a ballot.

On April 13, the 2023 confrontation will be reissued after the technical draw that reflected the results of the first round of this Sunday.

According to 91% of the recorded minutes, President Noboa adds 44.3% of the votes for 43.8% of Luisa González.

By BBCMUNDO

To avoid the second round it was necessary for a candidate to achieve more than 50% of the votes or ten points of advantage over his closest rival.

Both have already met in the 2023 elections, almost 15 months ago, and then Noboa won to finish the mandate of his predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, and become the youngest president in the history of the country.

González, protected by former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017) and leader of the leftist Citizen Revolution Movement (RC), spoke on Sunday of «technical tie» and celebrated what he described as a «great victory.»

The opposition immediate presidency.

«We face a president candidate who used the power of the State to campaign,» González denounced his rival.

For his part, Noboa – until the moment – has not given statements.

In 2023 Noboa defeated González for a tight 51.8% for 48.1%, a closed race such as the one expected in April.

The repetition of a second presidential round with the same protagonists in such a short time is one of the atypical elements of these elections.

Ecuador has one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America and, as in 2023, insecurity dominates the concerns of voters, even above even economic issues such as unemployment or cost of living according to surveys.

However, analysts warn that the context of this ballot is different from the previous one, when Noboa defeated González for less than four points.

«They are two completely different scenarios,» says Ecuadorian political analyst Santiago Cahuasquí to BBC Mundo.

The key question is who will favor the new electoral plot.

Noboa’s management

Noboa amounted to meteorically at the top of the power of his country when the then president, Guillermo Lasso, appealed to a constitutional mechanism to dissolve the Parliament, which threatened to initiate a political trial for alleged embezzlement of funds, and called early elections.

With 35 years at that time and after an effective performance in the electoral debates, Noboa went from being a little known assemblyman to the youngest elected president in the history of Ecuador, to end the period that corresponded to Lasso.

With tertiary studies in the United States that include a master’s degree in governance and political communication, Noboa is the third generation of a family of wealthy entrepreneurs from Guayaquil who amassed fortunes exporting bananas, and achieved in his first attempt what his father Álvaro sought unsuccessfully in success in Five applications to the Presidency.

Ecuador sank into a serious crisis of violence associated with drug trafficking: the homicide rate every 100,000 inhabitants went from less than seven in 2019 to 46 in 2023, and crimes such as the murder of a presidential candidate shook the country.

Noboa began to deploy a bold security policy when assuming the government, after the emergence of a group of armed criminals in a TV study that broadcast live in January 2024.

Their measures included declare the existence of an internal armed conflict and ordering the army to assume surveillance tasks in the streets and in prisons dominated by drug bands.

These decisions were ratified in a popular consultation and the homicide rate in Ecuador was reduced seven points, almost 39 per 100,000 people in the run of last year.

While the country still records one of the highest levels of homicides in the region, the change in tendency allows Noboa to exhibit modest results of its «punitive populism,» says Cahuasquí, a professor of political science at the Hemisphery University, in Quito, and member of the Observatory of Political Reforms in Latin America.

«The militarization of everyday life is something that many people perceive as a positive point yet,» he says. «And that is already enough for everything that has happened in Ecuador.»

«At the indicators level there are some small improvements, but it has not been a significant change,» Ecuadorian political analyst Andrés Chiriboga told BBC before the Ecuadorian elections.

The average of daily murders dropped from 22 in 2023 to 19 in 2024, according to official data, a variation that many consider insufficient taking into account the magnitude of the campaign against crime, financed in part with a rise of 3 points of the VAT of 12 % to 15%.

Criminality also rebounded strongly in January 2025, the most violent month of the last three years, with 731 murders, an average of 23.5 per day, almost one hour.

Another difference with respect to 2023 is that Noboa has also strengthened its National Democratic Action Party (DNA), explains the Cahuasquí analyst, and convinced a part of the electorate that “it already knows the management of the State and we must give continuity to a project that He has little time to solve all the problems, ”he says.

Economic, Ecuador suffered in 2024 an economic recession attributed, among other factors, to a serious energy crisis that caused blackouts throughout the country.

In the fourth quarter of the year the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell 1.5% interannual, one of the worst data from the pandemic.

In this situation, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) approved in May 2024 a loan of US $ 4,000 million to 48 months with an immediate disbursement of US $ 1 billion, something that gave a respite to the country and was interpreted as a victory of the government of Noboa.

The poverty rate increased from 26% in December 2023 to 28% in the same month of 2024, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC).

As a positive fact, inflation remained at bay in the dollarized Ecuadorian economy: in December prices varied 0.5% year -on -year.

What is a big problem, not only economic but also political and social, is the energy crisis.

Since last September, Ecuador suffered scheduled blackouts that, in some cases, exceeded 12 hours a day, a situation attributed to the drought that reduced the hydroelectric generation, the main source of energy in the country, and the lack of investment in infrastructure in previous years .

Wear

But the image of the 37 -year -old president could also wear out for different reasons, from an increase in violent deaths in January to different controversies he starred.

In April, he opened a diplomatic crisis with Mexico by authorizing police emerge in the embassy of that country to arrest a politician co -refugee there and convicted of corruption.

Noboa has even faced his vice president, Verónica Abad, whom she avoided passing the power to campaign as established by law.

And the warnings about the risks of his call to the Armed Forces to carry out police tasks resonated December, when four minors who played football in Guayaquil were arrested by military.

Their bodies then appeared calcined, with signs of torture, and a judge sent 16 military to preventive detention in relation to this case.

In a tired country of violence, it is uncertain how much the accusations of authoritarianism they receive from their critics for governing under the state of exception in different areas of the country will affect.

On the other hand, former President Correa was also accused of authoritarianism when he faced opponents and means of information from the government, polarizing the country.

After leaving the position, Correa was convicted in the absence of corruption, something he attributes to political persecution, and currently lives in Belgium.

Despite this, its political force Citizen Revolution remains competitive with the promise to return to the bonanza and stability of its governments.

Last year Ecuador entered into recession, in the midst of an energy crisis that caused large blackouts, and the poverty rate increased two points to 28%.

This scenario can cause in many nostalgia voters for Correa times in which the economy grew by force of oil income and the State invested in social policies and public service improvements.

The 47 -year -old candidate, has postgraduate degrees in senior management and international economy and development. He also occupied several public positions in the past, including the head of the Correa Cabinet, and now promises to «revive Ecuador.»

While the emphasis of your campaign is economic, it also proposes changes in other areas such as re -establishing the coordinating ministries of Security and Justice and Human Rights, or incorporating advanced technology to pursue crimes.

A difference regarding the past ballot is that the opposition can now hold Noboa for some of the country’s problems, says the political analyst Caroline Ávila.

In his opinion, the massive deportations of immigrants promised by US President Donald Trump, whose investiture attended Noboa in January after arguing that «the future looks promising for the continent» White.

Ecuador enters about US $ 4,000 million per year of remittances from their citizens living in the US, and a decrease in those shipments would feel in many families.

Ávila argues that, while in the 2023 González campaign he was an almost unknown exasambleist, he has now better defined his identity by speaking more of herself and including in her speeches messages about women and migrants.

«There are people who despite the stranger of Correa need to know who she is,» says Ávila, expert in political communication, BBC Mundo.

If this time González can beat him Noboa is to be seen.

The president presents himself as a guarantee of political renewal and hopes to absorb in the ballot the support of the voters opposed to Correa who supported other options in the first round.

The Noboa campaign has strong economic resources and has been efficient, although it lacks depth in the proposals, analysts say.

Now Ecuadorians have 63 days to opt for continuing their young president or change for a woman to be her head of state for the first time.