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Right-wing Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa and progressive Luisa González clinched first and second place in the first round of Ecuador’s presidential elections, winning a combined 88% of the valid votes. The two candidates will dispute the Presidency of the Republic on April 13.
According to data from the National Electoral Council, so far, right-wing President Daniel Noboa of the National Democratic Action (ADN) party won 44.29% of the valid votes, while Luisa González, of the Correist Citizen Revolution party, obtained 43.85%. This means that there is more or less a difference of 42,000 votes between the top two candidates out of the more than 10 million people who voted. In third place is the Indigenous leader Leonidas Iza with 5.26% of the Pachakutik party and in fourth place is the right-wing candidate Andrea González with 2.71%. The remaining twelve candidates obtained, individually, less than 1%. Between them, they add up to only 3.89%.
The last time a candidate obtained such a high first-round vote was in 2013, when then-president Rafael Correa reached 57% (thus winning the presidency in the first round). Banker and future president Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023) had won 23%, and former president Lucio Gutiérrez (2003-2005) won 7% of the valid votes. However, it had never happened before that the leading candidates obtained such a high and, at the same time, similar vote share.
Reactions of the candidates
For ADN and Daniel Noboa, paradoxically, the victory in the first round had a clear taste of defeat. Dozens of his supporters gathered in a hotel in the north of Quito to celebrate the announced victory in the first round. For this, Noboa should have reached more than 50% of the votes or more than 40% of the votes and a difference of 10% with the second-place candidate, in this case, Luisa González. None of this happened, although there was an air of triumphalism in the ruling party. The celebration, which did not take place, was not attended by the President.
Noboa’s supporters had to wait impatiently for a terse message that the President published on social media, in which he vindicated yesterday’s vote. Though Noboa still does not appear before cameras, which confirms this general feeling that he has assumed yesterday’s vote as a defeat caused by his high expectations: “We won the first round against all the parties of Old Ecuador. We won and took the most important step: consolidating a different Parliament, becoming the first [political] force.”
For its part, Correism did celebrate the elections, despite coming in second place. For several days, the spectre of a possible first round Noboa victory haunted the corridors of Ecuadorian politics. This undoubtedly made several people who were going to vote for other options decide to vote for Luisa González during the last week and thus prevented Noboa from getting more than 10% of the difference. This circumstance, in addition to the rejection of Noboa and the absolute crisis of the other classic parties, allowed Correism to surpass its vote in the first round of the last two elections, which was between 32.72% and 33.61%.
Correism has interpreted this first round as a possibility to defeat its rivals, a victory that has been elusive in the last two elections because although it is a political force that usually reaches the second round, the weight of the anti-correista vote ends up weighing more. Now it seems that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for Luisa González, because it seems that if she makes the right agreements with other political forces, and if she manages to diminish the effect of the media attacks against her figure, she could have a chance to win.
González published on X “Thanks to our militancy, to the citizens, to all of us who seek a change of course for our country. They have fear, we have hope.” For his part, the undisputed leader of the RC, Rafael Correa, said “Thank you all. Congratulations to our militancy, who faced millions of dollars and all the power of the State.”
What will define the winner?
Now the race begins to obtain the remaining votes to achieve victory. Noboa will surely bet on exacerbating, even more, the anti-correista sentiments (which will probably make Andrea González, the most radical anti-correista candidate, support the current President) and also gain the political support of the right-wing candidates who did not reach more than 1% of the votes. Perhaps Noboa will show himself as the great leader of an anti-Correaist coalition that, as usual, affirms that if he does not defeat the Correistas, the country will be destroyed (even though the country is currently going through a severe and multidimensional crisis).
González has already started sending public messages to Leonidas Iza, who accumulated 5% of the vote and who will be essential in the second round. Iza, González, and other candidates such as Jairala and Granja did not manage to cement an alliance of the progressive and leftist sectors before the elections, so they are already well aware of the most important discrepancies.
González will have to demonstrate, with an agreement, how much she desires the support of Leonidas Iza, who said that whether or not to support the RC candidate will not be decided by him, but will be “defined by the collective political power…They will have to wait for our collective decision…This country will finally understand that in this society community democracy, direct democracy and representative democracy will be combined. Here we are not going to passively hand over our vote to anyone. We are going to sustain our project of the country.” Finally, Iza affirmed: ‘This dream does not fit in the ballot box’.
The National Assembly will be bipartisan
The people of Ecuador also decided on the country’s next National Assembly. Due to the high vote for ADN and RC, its composition will be practically bipartisan. Although several seats have yet to be decided, it seems that Noboa’s party will have 65 seats, while Correism will reach 64 seats. Pachakutik, who supported Iza, will have eight seats, while the classic Social Christian Party suffers a significant loss by reaching only five seats. The right-wing Construye party achieved one seat, and four seats were won by regional movements and other alliances.
This year the Assembly increased the number of seats and that to define something by simple majority, 76 votes are needed. This fact is not minor, because, if the trend continues, for the first time in more than 15 years, Correism will not be the party with the most members in the Assembly. Likewise, it will need alliances to obtain a majority, as well as the right-wing party ADN, which will need strong alliances to maintain some balance in the legislative power. Everything will depend on the second round on April 13.
