At 35, Daniel Noboa has in his hands the destiny of Ecuador, a country ravaged by the violence of drug trafficking. Businessman and son of a billionaire, he became the youngest president in the country’s history on Sunday by winning the second round of the presidential vote with 52.3% of the vote.
Her opponent Luisa Gonzalez, heir to ex-president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), collected 47.70% of the votes and recognized her defeat even before the end of the count, congratulating “sincerely the winner”. In the process, the National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed Daniel Noboa the winner.
Noboa promises “peace, education and jobs”
“From tomorrow, hope begins to work,” promised the president-elect, thanking “God, my wife, my parents and all the people who were part of a new, young, improbable political project, including “The objective was to bring a smile back to the country.” As tirelessly repeated during his campaign, he once again “committed to restoring peace to a country, to restoring education and jobs to the many people who are looking for them, to giving peace to families who cannot get out in the street “.
The vote, announced in recent days as very close, took place without major incident, with a participation rate of more than 82.33%. It marks a heavy defeat for Correismo, the main political force for around fifteen years, while the shadow of ex-President Correa (in exile because he was convicted of corruption in his country) hung over the vote. Marked by the assassination of one of the main candidates, Fernando Villaviciencio, this election took place “in a climate of insecurity and political violence imposed by gangs linked to international organized crime”, the press summarized on Sunday. local.
Once considered an island of peace in Latin America, the country of 18 million inhabitants, located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest producers of cocaine, has been overtaken by an unprecedented wave of violence linked to crime. organized and drug trafficking. The president-elect promised “a firm hand” against criminal groups.
A very short time to apply your program
Daniel Noboa grew up behind the scenes of the electoral campaigns of his father, Alvaro Noboa, who made his fortune exporting bananas and ran unsuccessfully for president five times. Married and father of two children, this successful businessman studied at the best American universities before joining the family empire, the Noboa Corporation. The man calls himself “center left”, but this neoliberal embodies the Ecuadorian political elite from the world of private business and close to the right.
The new president, with the meager experience of two years as a deputy, will have very little time to keep his promises. He will govern until the beginning of 2025, the end of the mandate of outgoing conservative President Guillermo Lasso who chose to call early elections to avoid his dismissal amid accusations of corruption. He will also have a lot to do to obtain a majority in the National Assembly, which is particularly fragmented, where he only has 13 deputies, compared to 48 for the Correist party, out of a total of 137 seats.