The elections are taking place amid uncertainty generated by last-minute government decisions.

On Sunday, over 13.47 million Ecuadorians are called to vote in the runoff of the presidential elections, in which right-wing President Daniel Noboa and leftist candidate Luisa Gonzalez are competing.

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Once the electoral day was officially opened by the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Diana Atamaint, the 4,376 polling stations began to open at 7:00 a.m. local time and will remain open until 5:00 p.m. local time, at which point the vote counting will begin.

This is the second time in just a year and a half that Ecuadorians are heading to presidential elections, following the extraordinary elections of 2023, where both candidates were also the finalists.

Political polarization has taken on unprecedented dimensions. Although 16 candidates participated in the first round, Noboa and Gonzalez captured 88.16% of the valid votes. The president got 44.2% of the vote, while the leftist candidate garnered 44%, resulting in a difference of just 16,000 votes between them.

Noboa, the son of banana magnate Alvaro Noboa, seeks re-election to serve as president for the 2025–2029 term. Gonzalez, a 47-year-old lawyer, is aiming to become the first woman in Ecuador’s history to win a presidential election. She has pledged to form a unity government that includes various political forces to jointly address the country’s many challenges—especially violence and drug trafficking.

In Ecuador, voting is mandatory for citizens between the ages of 18 and 64. It is optional for teenagers aged 16 and 17, for those over 65, and for members of the National Police and the Armed Forces.

The entire electoral process is unfolding under a backdrop of criminal violence that has made the country the leader in homicide rates in Latin America—a trend that has even worsened at the beginning of 2025, with an average of one murder per hour.

For this reason, the Noboa administration deployed around 60,000 police officers and 40,000 military personnel to secure polling centers and oversee the voting process. Over 940 electoral observers will participate in the process, including around 200 delegates from the European Union (EU) and the Organization of American States (OAS).

teleSUR/ JF

Sources: EFE – teleSUR

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