Voting intention polls indicate that Luisa Gonzalez and Daniel Noboa are the favorites to win among 16 candidates.

On Sunday, 13 million Ecuadorians are expected to go to the polls to elect members of the National Assembly and the president who will lead this Andean republic for the 2025-2029 term.

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All voter intention polls indicate that Citizen Revolution candidate Luisa Gonzalez and the current president, Daniel Noboa, are the frontrunners to either win outright or advance to a second round. The other fourteen candidates are vying to unseat one of the two favorites and make it to the final runoff.

Luisa Gonzalez Could Become the First Female President of the Andean Nation

Luisa Gonzalez, who represents political forces aligned with former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017), embodies the hopes of progressive sectors eager to return to power after eight years in the opposition.

This lawyer came close to winning the presidency in 2023 when she was defeated in the second round of the extraordinary elections by the current president, Daniel Noboa, who is now seeking re-election and is emerging as the leader of Ecuador’s right-wing.

Due to her strong Catholic convictions, Gonzalez has expressed opposition to the full decriminalization of abortion during her time as a legislator. In addition to being a lawyer, she holds a master’s degree in Economics and Development from the Complutense University of Madrid.

During Correa’s administration, Gonzalez served as Coordinator of Strategic Agenda (2010), Ecuador’s Vice Consul in Madrid (2011), Deputy Minister of Tourism Management (2014), Secretary General of the Presidential Office (2015), National Secretary of Public Administration (2017), Consul in Alicante (2017), and Secretary of the Quito Companies’ Superintendency.

After Correa’s term ended in 2017, she entered active politics and was elected to the National Assembly in 2021, where she strongly opposed conservative President Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023), whose premature departure led to the 2023 extraordinary elections.

Following that election, Gonzalez became the leader of Citizen Revolution, which strengthened her candidacy for the presidency once again. Her running mate for vice president is economist Diego Borja.

Daniel Noboa Stands Out for Taking a Hardline Approach

At 37, Daniel Noboa is seeking re-election for a full term (2025-2029) after 14 months in office marked by authoritarian, controversial, and unpredictable actions against his opponents, who accuse him of seeking to remain in power as a dictator.

In the 2023 elections, he delivered a surprising victory in the second round against Luisa Gonzalez, becoming president of a country with the highest homicide rate in Latin America. Shortly after taking office, he declared a “war” on organized crime, which has yielded few tangible results and has been accompanied by allegations of human rights violations.

Without much hesitation, Noboa has made decisions that have sometimes been deemed unlawful, as ruled by the Constitutional Court in several cases. One example was his enactment of a law by decree after it had been rejected by the National Assembly.

In April 2024, Noboa ordered a police raid on the Mexican Embassy to arrest former Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been granted diplomatic asylum after claiming to be a political target due to corruption charges. This event led to a serious diplomatic crisis with Mexico, resulting in the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Noboa also triggered a political-legal battle with his vice president, Veronica Abad, who has accused him of harassment to force her resignation. In recent months, he has taken measures to keep Abad away from her position.

First, he sent her to Israel as an ambassador. Later, he suspended her from office—a decision later overturned by Ecuador’s judiciary. Subsequently, he appointed a “caretaker vice president” by decree to take over the presidency during the election campaign, a move recently ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court.

Noboa is a man of few words. His speeches last only a few minutes, and he rarely gives interviews to the media. Born in Miami, he is the son of banana industry tycoon and five-time presidential candidate Alvaro Noboa and former legislator Annabella Azin.

Fourteen Candidates Face Low Voter Intentions

Among the fourteen candidates polling at lower levels, perhaps the most recognizable figure is left-wing candidate Leonidas Iza of Pachakutik, the political arm of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), where he serves as president. With this organization, he participated in the 2019 protests against President Lenin Moreno (2017-2021) and led the 2022 demonstrations against President Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023).

Another candidate vying for third place is environmental activist Andrea Gonzalez of the Patriotic Society Party, who was the running mate of assassinated 2023 presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

Henry Cucalon (Construye) is running for president for the first time, having previously served as Minister of Government under former President Lasso and before that as a municipal official in Guayaquil for the conservative Social Christian Party (PSC).

Representing the PSC in this election is businessman Henry Kronfle, who until recently was President of Parliament. Kronfle has previously served as a legislator twice and also as a business leader.

Meanwhile, Judge Ivan Saquicela (Democracy Yes!) was, until a few months ago, President of Ecuador’s National Court of Justice and one of the magistrates who ruled to bar former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) from holding office, sentencing him to eight years in prison for alleged bribery.

Businessman Carlos Rabascall (Democratic Left) also has ties to Correa’s past, having been the vice-presidential candidate for Citizen Revolution in the 2021 elections. However, after that year’s defeat, he distanced himself from the party.

A similar case is that of Jimmy Jairala (Democratic Center), who, before running for president, hosted a radio interview program. He previously served as governor of Guayas Province for two terms, the last of which was under the endorsement of Alianza Pais, the movement that brought Correa to power in 2007.

Another candidate, lawyer and criminologist Pedro Granja (Ecuadorian Socialist Party), withdrew from street campaigning after reporting death threats against himself and his family.

From the left, Jorge Escala (Popular Unity) is also running. He has been a teacher at various public educational institutions for over 30 years and, between 2004 and 2007, was president of the National Union of Educators (UNE), Ecuador’s largest teachers’ union.

Representing the party People, Equality, and Democracy is Victor Araus, a police general who was dismissed from duty in 2022 amid a dispute with the then-national police commander and after the revocation of his U.S. visa.

Francesco Tabacchi was the governor of Guayas during former President Lasso’s administration and is now running as the candidate for CREO, the former president’s party.

Virtually unknown to Ecuadorians are candidates such as Luis Tilleria (Avanza), who has spent much of his life in London; Juan Cueva (Amigo), who has experience in the telecommunications sector; and Enrique Gomez (SUMA), who has a background in risk management.

Gomez replaced former soldier and security specialist Jan Topic, who was controversially disqualified by the Electoral Dispute Tribunal (TCE) when he was shaping up to be a serious contender to advance to the second round.

teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE

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