Daniel Noboa, son of Ecuador's richest person, wins election in campaign marred by assassination

Daniel Noboa, an inexperienced politician and heir to a fortune built on the banana trade, won Ecuador's presidential runoff election Sunday, which was held amid unprecedented violence that claimed the life of one candidate.

With more than 97 per cent of the votes counted late Sunday, electoral officials said Noboa had 52.1 per cent, compared to 47.9 per cent for Luisa González, a leftist lawyer and ally of exiled former president Rafael Correa.

González conceded defeat during a speech before supporters, in which she also urged Noboa to fulfil his campaign promises.

Noboa, 35, will lead the South American country during a period in which drug trafficking-related violence has risen sharply. A large group of military and police officers as well as private security guards protected Noboa when he voted in Olón, in the country's central Pacific coast, and he wore a bulletproof vest.

After results showed him victorious, Noboa thanked Ecuadorians for believing in "a new political project, a young political project, an improbable political project." He said his goal is "to return peace to the country, to give education to the youth again, to be able to provide employment to the many people who are looking for it."

Noboa said he will immediately begin to work to "rebuild a country that has been seriously hit by violence, corruption and hatred."

Soaring cartel violence

The incoming president's term will run only through May 2025, which is what remains of the tenure of former president Guillermo Lasso. He cut his term short when he dissolved the country's National Assembly in May, as lawmakers carried out impeachment proceedings against him over alleged improprieties in a contract by a state-owned company.

Under Lasso's watch, violent deaths soared, reaching 4,600 in 2022, the country's highest in history and double the total in 2021. The National Police tallied 3,568 violent deaths in the first half of 2023.

The spike in violence is tied to the trafficking of cocaine produced in neighbouring Colombia and Peru. Mexican, Colombian and Balkan cartels have set roots in Ecuador and operate with assistance from local criminal gangs.

"I think there would be a very slim chance that even the best-equipped president could reverse Ecuador's security crisis within 18 months — it's such a short period of time — and neither of these candidates was the best equipped. Noboa certainly not," said Will Freeman, a fellow on Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "His proposals on security were erratic, and they gave the sense that he was improvising."

The government's inability to tackle violence was laid bare in August with the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio.

Since then, other politicians and political leaders have been killed or kidnapped, car bombs have exploded in multiple cities — including the capital, Quito — and inmates have rioted in prisons.

Earlier this month, seven men whom authorities identified as suspects in Villavicencio's slaying were killed while in custody.

Succeeds where father failed

Noboa, whose U.S. education included a stint at Harvard, began his political career in 2021, when he got a seat in the National Assembly and chaired its Economic Development Commission.

He held management positions in the shipping, logistics and commercial areas at Noboa Inc.. His father, Álvaro Noboa, is the richest man in Ecuador, thanks to a conglomerate that started in the growing and shipping of bananas — Ecuador's main crop — and now includes more than 128 companies in dozens of countries.

The elder Noboa unsuccessfully ran for president five times.

The younger Noboa's party will not have have enough seats in the National Assembly to be able to govern on its own, a scenario that plagued Lasso.

"I don't expect much from this election," said Julio Ricaurte, a 59-year-old voter, on Sunday. "First, because the president will have little time to do anything, and second, because the Assembly in our country is an organization that prevents anyone who comes to power from governing."

González was unknown to most voters until the party of Correa, her mentor, picked her as its presidential candidate. She held various government jobs during Correa's decade-long presidency and was a lawmaker from 2021 until May.

At the start of the campaign, she said Correa would be her adviser, but she recently sought to distance herself a bit in an effort to court voters who oppose the former president, who lives in his wife's native Belgium after being sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison on corruption charges in 2020. 

Christian Zurita, the replacement for Villavicencio after his killing, finished in third place.