In the second round of Ecuador’s presidential election on April 13, the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared that incumbent right-wing President, Daniel Noboa, was reelected with 55.6% of the valid votes, winning over the progressive candidate of Correism, Luisa González, who obtained 44.4%. However, González announced that her party, the Citizen Revolution, would not accept the results and alleged that electoral fraud had taken place.
The basis of the fraud accusation is that the results do not coincide with the vast majority of the pre-election opinion polls or with exit polls, according to which the difference between the two candidates would not be more than 4%.
In addition, González denounced that the electoral campaign was flawed because Noboa did not respect national electoral law by not resigning his position to carry out campaign activities and deliberately used public resources during the campaign, such as the distribution of bonus checks to thousands of Ecuadorians.
Based on these irregularities, the Citizen Revolution accused the electoral authorities, the CNE, and the Contentious Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of failing to issue any type of warning or sanction to Noboa for the alleged use of public resources for his benefit. Due to these and other accusations, González announced that there was a “grotesque” fraud and requested the total recount of the votes, which has had several diplomatic consequences.
Recognition and disregard of the elections
González’s declarations created great uncertainty at the diplomatic level. On the one hand, several American governments have recognized Noboa’s victory. Donald Trump wrote: “Congratulations to Daniel Noboa, who will be a great leader for the wonderful Ecuadorian people.” In the same sense, the progressive presidents Gabriel Boric (Chile), Bernardo Arévalo (Guatemala), and Yamandú Orsi (Uruguay) quickly congratulated Noboa for his re-election.
However, even internationally, many doubts still remain with regards to what happened on April 13.
Although the Secretary of State of Colombia congratulated Noboa, President Gustavo Petro published on X where he expressed that he would not recognize the electoral results due to the context in which the vote was held in Ecuador: “The OAS points out irregularities in the elections in Ecuador. A state of exception was decreed in seven provinces. The army directed the election day, the polling stations during the elections, and the counting of votes. There are no free elections under a state of siege. I cannot recognize the elections in Ecuador.”
The government of Claudia Sheinbaum joined in the non-recognition of Ecuador’s election results. Mexico has not had diplomatic relations with the South American country for around a year, after Noboa ordered the storming of the Mexican embassy in Quito to capture former vice-president Jorge Glas. Sheinbaum said that the electoral result in Ecuador is “doubtful” and that she will not resume diplomatic relations as long as Noboa is President of Ecuador: “The other candidate is saying that there was fraud, then from our side, relations with Ecuador will not be resumed. There are no conditions for that to happen, and to begin with, they have a person imprisoned [Jorge Glas], who was inside the Embassy.”
The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has also refused to recognize Noboa as President of Ecuador, calling the electoral process a “scandalous fraud.” In addition, Maduro has denounced that the organization Súmate, which is close to the opposition María Corina Machado, may be behind the alleged electoral fraud thanks to funds coming from third countries: “They are trying to impose by force the hegemony of a single empire: the empire of the United States, again. It is a great threat because that is impossible, simply impossible.”
Correism denounces the persecution of its leaders
In his X account, the maximum leader of the Citizen Revolution, former President Rafael Correa, denounced that a list of names of Correism that supposedly have a migration alert after the elections of April 13 is circulating among the police: “There is an alert that yesterday was passed to all the police migration personnel at the airport. The instruction is as follows: ‘Please be alert. Advise discreetly. Notify the supervisor in charge. Review all alerts.’ That’s about a hundred names. They even include our campaign strategists. One of them, who was returning to Argentina, was abusively held for two hours, with everything checked.”
This complaint was made after the vice-presidential candidate of Correism, Diego Borja, denounced that several police officers tried to detain him when he tried to travel to Colombia through the Rumichaca International Bridge: “Without any court order, without any explanation, and with absolute arrogance, [the Ecuadorian police officers] tried to take away my freedom. They took away my identity card and tried to detain me…Today, like thousands of my compatriots, I have felt in my flesh the weight of a State that persecutes instead of protecting, that intimidates instead of dialoging. Fortunately, I managed to protect my integrity by crossing into Colombian territory, thus avoiding an arrest without cause, without a court order, and without any legal basis.”
Given this denunciation, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he would offer refuge to all those who are on the list denounced by Correa hours before. On X, Petro posted, “There is a blacklist of opponents in Ecuador who are being persecuted. The Colombian government will give asylum to anyone who arrives in Colombian territory. Colombian election observers have been detained.”
Thus, Noboa’s government will start its second term amidst intrigues about alleged political persecution and divided international recognition of his government.
