How Daniel Noboa Won in Ecuador and What to Expect from His New Term

Public domain image, May 24

By Pilar Troya Fernández

On 10 May 2025, the Ecuadorian National Electoral Council proclaimed Daniel Noboa the winner of the presidential elections held on 13 April. The announcement was made amid allegations of fraud, electoral irregularities, and growing authoritarianism. This re-election represents the continuation and deepening of a neoliberal and militarised model that has exacerbated the economic crisis, violence, and poverty in the country.

Noboa, heir to Ecuador’s richest businessman, first took office in 2023 after Guillermo Lasso declared a ‘muerte cruzada’ (crossed death) to avoid being removed from office. He won that election against Luisa González of the Citizen Revolution (RC), the movement of former President Rafael Correa. During his first term, which lasted only a year and a half, his government caused a recession of -2% in 2024, poverty reached 28% nationwide and 43% in rural areas, and there was an alarming increase in violence.

In April 2025, he was re-elected, once again against González, who had the backing of a broad left-wing coalition, including the indigenous movement, which is currently the strongest popular movement.

The elections were marked by serious irregularities: the National Electoral Council (CNE) disqualified candidate Jan Topic, Noboa’s main rival on the right. At the same time, the government suspended Vice President Verónica Abad to prevent her from temporarily assuming the presidency, allowing Noboa to bypass the constitutional requirement to request leave during his election campaign.

Noboa, the president and candidate, frequently ‘confused’ roles, as noted in the EU election observers’ report. The government used state resources for electoral purposes, releasing $550 million in subsidies and using public media for the campaign, without sanction from the CNE. In contrast, the CNE did open baseless proceedings against opposition figures such as Pabel Muñoz, mayor of Quito for the Revolución Ciudadana (RC) party, in clear continuity with the latest form of lawfare that has been ravaging the country since 2018.

The CNE also banned the use of cell phones on election day, limiting citizen oversight and political movements, and restricted the ability of Ecuadorians in Venezuela to vote. At the same time, Noboa declared a state of emergency with a military presence in the provinces where the RC is strongest.

The armed forces openly supported Noboa’s campaign, in violation of their non-partisan role. All pre-election polls and exit polls showed a technical tie or even gave González the lead. However, the official result gave Noboa a surprising lead of almost eleven points. The RC denounced the fraud and requested a review of the ballots and a recount, which was rejected by the CNE. A foreign expert report warns that the ballots could have been tampered with because they were printed with a special ink, and the OAS report also detected irregularities. A study shows that there is no precedent in the region in this century for such a large and sudden shift between the first and second rounds.

The country is experiencing a serious security crisis. Violence linked to drug trafficking has skyrocketed: more than 400 people have been killed in prison massacres since 2021, and the homicide rate has risen from 5 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017 to 45 in 2025. Every month, the record for violent deaths is broken: 831 in March 2025, 750 in January, representing a 65% increase compared to the first quarter of 2024 and almost 40% compared to the same period in 2023. Although Noboa claims to have a “Plan Fénix” to combat organised crime, its contents are secret, and its results to date have been nil. At the same time, there are a number of allegations directly linking companies in the Noboa group to drug shipments in banana exports.

Media concentration and misinformation on social media, which constantly spread fake news against Correa and the RC, help maintain the official narrative. For example, Correa is blamed for the increase in violence for closing the US military base in Manta in 2009, despite the fact that crime fell between 2010 and 2017 and only increased since 2019, with the right-wing turn of Lenín Moreno, who returned to the IMF.

Economically, Ecuador was one of the Latin American countries that experienced negative growth in 2024, with four consecutive quarters of contraction. The projection for 2025 is just 1.6% growth according to the IMF, and could worsen if there is an external shock. Another danger is if the energy crisis caused by last year’s low water levels, which left the country without electricity for up to 14 hours a day, repeats itself. This is taking into account that Noboa has not adopted any relevant measures to solve the energy problem, nor has he put forward any serious and viable proposals to revive the economy.

In foreign policy, the Ecuadorian president aligns himself with Washington’s imperialist policy and has met with the Southern Command and shown affinity with Donald Trump, with whom he sought to meet in Florida before the elections, without success.

The new administration is already showing signs of greater authoritarianism. With a partial legislative majority, Noboa’s party submitted a bill on May 14 classified as ‘urgent economic legislation’, which requires the National Assembly to consider it within a month or it will be automatically approved. Under the pretext of combating the criminal economy that is the basis of the ‘internal armed conflict’ – a label created by Noboa that seeks to equate criminals and drug traffickers with terrorists – the bill seeks to grant early pardons to law enforcement officials, allow raids without a warrant, and extend preventive detention.

On the military front, the Constitution prohibits foreign bases, but agreements signed with the US since 2019 (by former President Guillermo Lasso) have facilitated the use of Ecuadorian ports and airports by US military and security personnel. Noboa will now seek to reform the Constitution to allow the formal return of US military bases, especially in the Galapagos Islands, a strategic enclave for the US as part of its control of the South Pacific. The Galapagos Islands are also important with regard to shipping flows to the Panama Canal in the context of the encirclement of China. US military presence in that territory has already been reported.

In short, Daniel Noboa’s second term looks set to be a deepening of his neoliberal policies: reduced public investment, privatisations, greater labour flexibility, cuts to social programs, financialisation linked to the elimination of money laundering controls, and authoritarianism expressed through militarisation. The opposition denounces a democratic setback, the weakening of the rule of law, and a move toward total control by an economic elite, with external (US) and military backing.

Pilar Troya Fernández is an Ecuadorian anthropologist with a master’s degree in gender studies and a researcher at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. She was an advisor to the National Secretariat for Planning, an advisor to the National Secretariat for Higher Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation, and Deputy Secretary General for Higher Education in Ecuador. She currently resides in Brazil.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.