Ecuador woke up today with relief after the messages of unity and non-confrontation launched in the night by the president-elect, the centrist Daniel Noboaand the defeated Luisa Gonzalez, standard bearer of the Citizen Revolution. “We have made history, the families chose the New Ecuador, a country with security and employment. We are going for a country of realities where surprises do not remain in the campaign and corruption is punished,” highlighted the youngest president of the Americas, 35 years, compared to 37 for the Chilean Gabriel Boric or the 42 of the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele.
The results at the polls almost photocopied those obtained in 2021 by the current president, Guillermo Lasso, against Correism. With almost 98% of the votes counted, Noboa was left with the 51,99% of support compared to 48.01% of his rival. Almost four points compared to the 4.7% obtained by the conservative banker, who has not been able to complete his term due to harassment from drug trafficking and the opposition.
Noboa has no time to lose in the face of a year and a half full of challenges ahead. Today he himself will meet with Lasso at the Carondelet Palace to design an express transition, which will be completed in mid-December with his swearing-in. Backed by his surprising victory and by the new air that is already being breathed in his country, his first challenge is to consolidate a majority in Parliament that made the current president suffer so much.
For now, even the Correístas have offered some support, after González’s open hand, “because Ecuador needs to be united.” Another very different thing is what the great loser of the electoral process, former president Rafael Correa, thinks, who took longer than anyone else to recognize the results and did so reluctantly, a trademark of the house: “This time we did not succeed. We faced enormous powers. “One candidate was even murdered to prevent our victory.”
The route map prepared from the refuge in Belgium of the former president has been shattered. There will no longer be a Constituent Assembly to force his return through the front door and a pardon that redeems his seven-year prison sentence for corruption. He will not be the candidate in 2025 either, as he intended. One of the great dinosaurs of Latin American politics will continue waiting for an opportunity to regain the power he longs for.