Corraista Luisa González and young businessman Daniel Noboa will compete for the presidency of Ecuador in a second round on October 15 after scrutiny of the election results in the two most voted candidates.

With almost 78% of the vote counted, González received 33.19% of the vote and Noboa 24.04%, followed by the assassinated Fernando Villavicencio with 16.37%, who was replaced by Cristian Zurita.

Although the polls already predicted Gonzalez would get the most votes in the first round, thanks to the tough voting that Rafael Correa’s political current usually gets, Noboa missed out on the pools and his support has skyrocketed in recent days. youth voting and presenting the image of an “outsider”.

González, a lawyer and former member of the assembly who has held various positions in the Correa administration, stressed in a public speech to her followers that she would be the first woman to run in a runoff presidential election in Ecuador.

Thank you dear Ecuador 🇪🇨 for this civil victory! 💪🏼
We continue this struggle in which you have already given us the first victory and there will be a great and final second victory. Never tired of hoping and believing in our country 💪🏼#ResourceDeLaPatria pic.twitter.com/7TicozJb9X

— Luisa Gonzalez (@LuisaGonzalezEc) August 21, 2023

“We are calling for the unity of all Ecuadorians,” said González, who followed the results in Quito, accompanied by former Spanish government vice president and former Podemos general secretary Pablo Iglesias.

For the Civil Revolution candidate, the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, a staunch enemy of Correa due to allegations of alleged corruption he had leveled against him throughout his journalistic career, damaged his candidacy and prevented him from winning the election. first place circle.

To win in the first round, he had to get 50% of the votes or, conversely, at least 40% and be ahead of the rest by at least ten percentage points.

SURPRISE OF THE NIGHT

Noboa, 35, the son of tycoon Alvaro Noboa, who was a five-time presidential candidate, came as the surprise of the evening by finishing in second place and going to a vote where Noboa would again face correísmo, as his father had already done in 2007 against Correa.

The political alliance candidate ADN has gained momentum since his participation in last Sunday’s presidential debate, to the point where he overtook other more well-known and media personalities in the presidential race, such as former vice president Otto Sonnenholzner, an environmental politician Jaku. Perez and former legionnaire and security specialist businessman Jan Topik.

“This will not be the first time a new project has turned the political establishment upside down. It is the freshness in politics that brought us here,” he assured at a press conference held in Guayaquil, to which his campaign staff did not provide access to either the media or international agencies.

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A post posted by Daniel Noboa Azin (@danielnoboaok)

OPPOSITE ORIGINS

Although she described herself as center-left in a July interview with EFE, Noboa comes from the business community of Guayaquil, one of Ecuador’s biggest economic engines, while Luisa González has her roots in the rural coastal province of Manabi, of which she has always been proud.

Whoever wins this election will succeed the current president, Conservative Guillermo Lasso, to complete his 2021-2025 term, interrupted by the head of state last May, by triggering the constitutional “crucifixion” mechanism by which he dissolved the National Assembly (Parliament ) and forced this extraordinary electoral process.

In third place on the ballot, far from able to take Noboa off the ballot, is slain candidate Fernando Villavicencio, riddled with bullets by alleged Colombian hitmen on August 9 as he left a political rally in Quito.

Villavicencio’s votes will fall on Surita, who was granted precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) this Sunday after he said he received death threats similar to those received by his colleague days before his assassination.

STRONG COREISM ASSEMBLED

Meanwhile, in the National Assembly (Parliament) elections, the correísmo aims to have a broad representation that can be around 40%, according to a thorough analysis of the members of the national assembly, followed by the Construye movement, the Zurita movement and Villavicencio, which has 21% when it was counted 34.75% of the votes.

On that day, 82.26% of more than 13.4 Ecuadorians with the right to vote took part in the vote, on a day that passed without major incidents, except for problems with the computer platform for telematic voting of Ecuadorians registered in a foreigner who, according to the National Electoral Council (CNE) has been the target of cyberattacks from countries such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, and China.

The elections are taking place in the midst of a state of emergency imposed by the government following the assassination of Villavicencio, with polling stations heavily guarded by police and military forces to prevent further acts of violence, in a spiral attributed by the authorities to organized crime and drug trafficking EFE