Daniel Noboa grew up behind the scenes of the election campaign of his father, Alvaro Noboa, who made his fortune exporting bananas and unsuccessfully ran for president five times.
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With 52.1% of the vote, businessman and billionaire son Daniel Noboa became president of Ecuador on Sunday at the age of 35, promising to get to work immediately to bring “peace” to a country devastated by drug trafficking violence .
Her opponent Luisa Gonzalez, successor to ex-president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), received 47.9% of the vote and acknowledged her defeat before the end of the counting and “sincerely congratulated the winner”. The National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Mr. Noboa the winner.
“Tomorrow we will start working for this new Ecuador (…) to rebuild a country seriously affected by violence, corruption and hatred,” commented the elected president from his stronghold of Olon (West). on the Pacific coast.
“From tomorrow, hope begins,” he promised together with his pregnant wife, thanking “God, my wife, my parents and all the people who were part of a new political project, young, unlikely, whose aim was to bring back smiles. “to the country.”
“Get out on the street”
As he tirelessly reiterated during his campaign, he was once again committed to “restoring peace in a country, returning education and jobs to the many people who seek it, and giving peace to families who cannot take to the streets.” .
This victory was greeted with horn concerts in Quito, but without a large popular assembly.
The vote, which was announced in recent days as being very close, took place without any major incidents with a participation rate of over 82.33%. This represents a major defeat for Correismo, the main political force in Ecuador for around fifteen years, while the shadow of Rafael Correa (in exile because he was convicted of corruption in his country) hung over the vote.
Ms. Gonzalez, 45, came first in the first round of voting on Aug. 20 with 34% of the vote. Benjamin of the election, Daniel Noboa, had caused a surprise by coming second (23%) in a campaign marred by the assassination of one of the main candidates, Fernando Villaviciencio, a former journalist with an anti-corruption discourse, was marked.
This election took place “in a climate of insecurity and political violence perpetrated by gangs linked to international organized crime,” the local press summarized on Sunday.
The country of 18 million, once considered an island of peace in Latin America and located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest cocaine producers, has been gripped by an unprecedented wave of violence linked to organized crime and drug trafficking.
Noboa Corporation
Daniel Noboa grew up behind the scenes of the election campaign of his father, Alvaro Noboa, who made his fortune exporting bananas and unsuccessfully ran for president five times, most notably against Rafael Correa in 2006.
The successful businessman, married with two children, studied at the best American universities before joining the family empire, the Noboa Corporation.
Smiling, but initially reserved, with a sporty demeanor, he promised “a firm hand” against criminal groups. To this end, he proposes the “militarization of ports and borders to protect strategic export and trade routes” or even the development of “citizen vigilance.”
Other major security projects: the creation of a national intelligence agency that will oversee all intelligence agencies, including the prison administration (SNAI), a “total disaster,” he said, while the country’s prisons have been the scene of repeated massacres between inmates of rival gangs.
The man describes himself as “center-left,” but this neoliberal embodies the Ecuadorian political elite from the private sector and the right-wing environment.
Its 76-page program contains four components: “social, economic, institutional and environmental.” The aim is to reduce poverty and increase employment through investments, the creation of small and medium-sized businesses, cutting bureaucracy and even access to credit. He also promised to “update” the minimum wage.
The man with the meager experience of two years as deputy will hardly have time to keep his promises. He will rule until early 2025, the end of the term of outgoing conservative President Guillermo Lasso, who opted to call early elections to avoid being fired over corruption allegations.
Mr Noboa will also have a lot of work to do to secure a majority in the National Assembly, which is particularly fragmented, where he has only 13 deputies, compared to 48 for the Correist party, for a total of 137 seats.
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The transfer of power to Mr Lasso is scheduled for around December 10, but Mr Noboa will travel to the presidential office on Tuesday to meet the outgoing head of state, who “congratulated” him on his victory.