Voting begins in the general election day of Ecuador: its citizens choose the next president

The general vote of the presidential and legislative elections of Ecuador began this Sunday with more than 13.7 million voters called the polls to choose their authorities for the 2025-2029 period, with the current president, Daniel Noboa, and the candidate Del Correismo, Luisa González, as favorites for the Presidency.

The doors of 4,439 voting centers were opened from 7:00 local time (11:00 GMT) to receive voters until 17:00 local time (22:00 GMT), at which time the polls will be closed and will begin A scrutiny that can be extended until late at night until you have conclusive results.

For the presidential election there will be a second round on April 13 if this Sunday no candidate achieves half plus one of the votes or, in another valid scenario, at least 40 % of the votes and a minimum advantage of ten percentage points over the rest.

Although sixteen presidential candidates, Noboa (National Democratic Action – DNA) and González (Citizen Revolution – RC) have been polarized the race to reach the Carondelet Palace, from Quito, where the headquarters of the Presidency of Ecuador are located.

Noboa, heir to one of the country’s greatest fortunes, already defeated González, alfil of former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017) in the extraordinary elections of 2023, held to complete the period 2021-2025 that Guillermo Lasso did not culminate, and now Find your re -election for a mandate.

Meanwhile, González Enarbola the hope of the correist movement to return to the national government after eight years away from him.

Assembly is reconfigured

In these elections, Ecuadorians also choose the members of the National Assembly (Parliament), which will go from having 137 assembly members to have 151 legislators, as well as five representatives for the Andean Parliament.

The expectation for the Legislative will be concentrated in the possibility that DNA can become the first force in the hemicycle and displace the citizen revolution of the camera control currently.

In Ecuador the vote is mandatory for people from 18 to 64 years under imposition of a fine of $ 45, while it is optional for adolescents aged 16 and 17, for people 65 years and older, and for police members National and armed forces.

It is also optional for the more than 446,000 registered abroad that are enabled to vote in 39 countries, with the most numerous communities in the United States, Spain and Italy.

In the previous days the early vote of the prisoners was made without firm conviction and of the people over 50 and with at least 75 % of disability who requested to cast their votes from their own homes, which in total added around 2,000 voted that will be computed next to the rest once the electoral enclosures close this Sunday.

Under elections «internal armed conflict»

The elections in the national territory are held under the «internal armed conflict» declared by Noboa since the beginning of the year 2024 against organized crime, the cause of the escalation of violence that led the Andean country to register in 2023 the highest rate of homicides of homicides of Latin America.

The Ecuadorian president has ordered to extreme security measures nationwide during the main days of the elections, so he closed the terrestrial borders with Colombia and Peru for the entry of foreigners between Saturday 8 and Monday, February 10.

He also ordered the militarization of ports, used by drug trafficking mafias to send large amounts of drugs to North America and Europe.

On this election day, a contingent of 56,000 police and some 48,000 military will be deployed throughout the country, dedicated to safeguarding the voting enclosures, especially in those areas of the Ecuadorian coast where the highest criminal violence rates are recorded.

This electoral process has 1,682 observers accredited to the CNE, of which 1,174 are national and 508 international. Among the largest electoral observation missions in the country are those of the European Union (EU), with more than one hundred members, and that of the Organization of American States (OAS), with 88 members. EFE