Ecuador’s Noboa wins presidential run-off, rival demands recount

Right-wing incumbent has four-year term to implement promises to clamp down on crime and improve economy.

Ecuador’s right-wing President Daniel Noboa has been re-elected in a second-round election run-off.

The National Electoral Council declared late on Sunday that the incumbent, who has promised to boost the flagging economy and continue a crackdown on cartel violence, had won by a wide margin.

With more than 90 percent of ballots counted, the 37-year-old Noboa was reported to have taken 55.8 percent of the vote. That gave him a twelve-point lead over left-wing opponent Luisa Gonzalez.

However, his rival, whose support polls had suggested was running close to the incumbent’s, has demanded a recount, claiming the vote was fraudulent.

Noboa, who was elected in snap elections in 2023, now has a full four-year mandate in which to continue his divisive “mano dura” (tough) crackdown on violence tied to the trafficking of cocaine produced in neighbouring Colombia and Peru. The smuggling and associated criminality has blighted Ecuador since 2021.

“Ecuadorians have spoken. From tomorrow morning, we will go to work,” Noboa told supporters during a brief speech in his hometown of Olon. He also criticised his opponent’s fraud allegations.

Gonzalez, who may have been penalised at the polls for her close ties to populist firebrand ex-President Rafael Correa, told chanting supporters that the result was “the worst and most grotesque electoral fraud in the history of Ecuador”.

The results came as a surprise to many after the first round in February, in which Noboa finished just 16,746 votes ahead of Gonzalez. The latter candidate had the backing of Leonidas Iza, a powerful Indigenous leader who secured more than half a million votes in the first round.

But voters were heavily concerned about the spike in drug-related violence. The once-peaceful nation averaged a killing every hour at the start of the year, as cartels vied for control over cocaine routes that pass through Ecuador’s ports.

Rampant bloodshed has spooked investors and tourists alike, fueling economic malaise and swelling the ranks of Ecuador’s poor to 28 percent of the population.

Noboa, heir to a family fortune built on the banana trade, had staked his political fortunes on tough security policies since he came to power 16 months ago, deploying the military to the streets, capturing drug lords and inviting the United States to send in special forces.