Ecuador reelects President Daniel Noboa, a conservative millionaire with a divisive no-holds-barred crimefighting record

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Ecuadorian voters weary of crime reelected President Daniel Noboa, a conservative young millionaire with a divisive no-holds-barred crimefighting record, by a wide margin Sunday, but his opponent vowed to seek a recount over what she described as "grotesque" electoral fraud.

Figures released by Ecuador's National Electoral Council showed Noboa receiving 55.8% of the vote with more than 92% of ballots counted, while leftist lawyer Luisa González earned 44%. Council president Diana Atamaint said those results showed an "irreversible trend" in favor of Noboa.

The win gives Noboa four years to fulfill the promises he first made in 2023, when he stunned voters by winning a snap election and a 16-month presidency despite his limited political experience.

"Ecuador is changing… and that path will mean our children will live better lives than we did," Noboa told supporters during a brief speech in which he also criticized his opponent’s fraud allegations.

"I find it embarrassing that with an 11- or 12-point difference, they come out to question the will of the Ecuadorians," Noboa added. "Ecuadorians have already spoken, now we have to get to work."

Noboa, heir to a fortune built on the banana trade, is expected to continue applying some of his no-holds-barred crimefighting strategies that part of the electorate finds appealing but which have tested the limits of laws and norms of governing.

González's defeat marks the third consecutive time that the party of Rafael Correa, the country's most influential president this century, failed to return to the presidency. She told supporters that her campaign "does not recognize the results presented by the "(National Electoral Council)," arguing among other issues that pre-election polls showed her ahead of Noboa.

The candidates advanced to Sunday's contest after getting the most votes in February's first-round election. Noboa led González by about 17,000 votes that time.

No. 1 concern among voters was violence

Voters were primarily worried about the violence that transformed the country, starting in 2021 - a spike in crime tied to the trafficking of cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru.

Both candidates promised tough-on-crime policies, better equipment for law enforcement and international help to fight drug cartels and local criminal groups.

"My vote is clear," said Irene Valdez, a retiree who voted for Noboa. "I want to continue living in freedom."

College student Martín Constante had a different view.

"I think Luisa is going to change things because Noboa has been very authoritarian," Constante, 19, said near a voting center in Quito, the capital. "Our country needs a lot of changes."

Much of González’s support comes from people who long for the low crime and unemployment rates of Correa's presidency but gloss over his authoritarian tendencies, the huge debt he ran up and the corruption-related sentence handed down to him in absentia in 2020.

More than 13 million people were eligible to vote, which is mandatory for adults up to the age of 65. It is optional for people aged 16 and 17 and over 65. Failure to vote results in a $46 fine.

Electoral authorities reported voter participation of more than 80%.

"The most important thing is that a comfortable result gives peace of mind to the country because it avoids a political confrontation, or even worse, a violent one due to accusations of fraud," said Grace Jaramillo, an Andean region expert and professor at the University of British Columbia. "Noboa's victory is clear, and that also reassures the international community in the face of a wave of uncertainty."

Several arrests over ballot anomalies

Atamaint said several people, including voters and poll workers, were arrested over ballot anomalies. She said some cases involved double voting and others stemmed from reports of counterfeit, pre-marked ballots.

Atamaint added that 17 people were caught taking photos of their ballots, which the National Electoral Council banned for this election citing reports of voter coercion by criminal groups. The violation comes with a maximum fine of $32,000.

Many Ecuadorians used their vote to express rejection of a candidate and not necessarily to endorse the candidate they voted for.

"Ecuador is polarized, which is a sign of rejection of the past, but also of the recent policies of the Noboa administration," political analyst Oswaldo Landázuri said, adding that the expected tight result "could become a major problem for the country" if one candidate does not recognize the other as the winner.

In 2023, Noboa and González were largely unknown to most voters as they sought the presidency for the first time. They were first-term lawmakers in May 2023, when then-President Guillermo Lasso dissolved the National Assembly, shortening his own mandate as a result and triggering that year's snap election.

Noboa heir to a fortune built on bananas

Noboa's first foray into politics was his stint as a lawmaker. An heir to a fortune built on the banana trade, Noboa opened an event organizing company when he was 18 and then joined his father's Noboa Corp., where he held management positions in the shipping, logistics and commercial areas.

González, 47, held various government jobs during the presidency of Correa, who led Ecuador from 2007 through 2017 with free-spending socially conservative policies and grew increasingly authoritarian in his last years as president.

Noboa, 37, declared Ecuador to be in a state of "internal armed conflict" in January 2024, allowing him to deploy thousands of soldiers to the streets to combat gangs and to charge people with terrorism counts for alleged ties to organized crime groups.

Under his watch, the homicide rate dropped from 46.18 per 100,000 people in 2023, to 38.76 per 100,000 people in 2024. But despite the decrease, the rate remained far higher than the 6.85 homicides per 100,000 people seen in 2019.

Some of Noboa's heavy-handed crime-fighting tactics have come under scrutiny for testing the limits of laws and norms of governing. He has also been criticized for allegations of electoral irregularities he made after February's vote.

Following the first-round election, Noboa said there had been "many irregularities" and that in certain provinces "there were things that didn't add up." He provided no further details or evidence. Electoral observers from the Organization of American States and the European Union ruled out fraud.

As González walked through the streets of Canuto, a town in the coastal province of Manabí where she grew up, to reach her voting center, supporters shouted "Luisa is the people.”

"We have all united to rewrite the history of Ecuador," she told people Sunday before denouncing reports of attempts to "plant marked ballots" with her name.