Ecuador, a country divided
An issue of Expreso newspaper on February 9, 2025, which was election day in Ecuador. Photo © Lisbeth Moya Gónzalez.
Reportage • Lisbeth Moya González • February 13, 2025 • Leer en castellano
Sunday’s elections in Ecuador revealed a sharply divided country, recalling its complex history of land struggle and political conflict.
In a country with one of the highest rates of violence in Latin America, voting patterns don’t necessarily reflect social class. Political patronage and shifting alliances among the left and right are also significant factors. Dislike of President Rafael Correa and his political movement, along with major investments in electoral propaganda by the most important parties, also shaped the vote.
The National Electoral Council announced current president Daniel Noboa of the National Democratic Action Movement (ADN) received the most votes, at 44.15 percent. Luisa González, from Correa’s Citizen Revolution Movement (RC) in alliance with the Total Renewal Movement (Reto) followed closely with 43.95 percent. Both candidates will advance to the second round, scheduled for April 13, 2025.
The candidacy of Leonidas Iza of the Pachakutik Movement is also noteworthy—he obtained 5.3 percent of the vote—as is that of Andrea González of the rightwing Patriotic Society Party, who won just under three percent. In a country in which it is illegal not to vote, 6.8 percent of voters spoiled their ballots and 2.16 percent left them blank.
ADN won 68 seats in the National Assembly, which means that Anabella Azín, Noboa's mother and the head of the party’s list for Congress, could become president of the legislature. Citizen Revolution came in second with 65 representatives. But Pachakutik was the big winner here: by winning eight seats, it became the third-largest legislative force for the first time in its history.
Crack down or Correísmo?
“The market is a good place to listen to voters because people of all kinds come together there,” said Santiago Pérez, director of the political polling agency Clima Social and a specialist in electoral processes, as we walked through Quito’s streets on election day. “Just because people belong to one social class or another does not necessarily mean that they’ll vote for the left or the right.”
I could see that Pérez was correct as soon as we entered the market, where I noticed two cardboard cut-outs of Noboa sitting above a fruit seller’s stall. Noboa has been president since October 2023, following former President Guillermo Lasso’s declaration of “mutual death,” which dissolved the National Assembly and led to snap elections. During just a year and a half in government, Noboa oversaw a sales tax hike, an energy crisis and a program of militarization that led to the forced disappearance and murder of four Black children outside of Guayaquil, among other crimes.
A strong alliance with the US characterized the Noboa government. He was one of three Latin American leaders invited to Donald Trump's inauguration. He allowed US soldiers to intervene in Ecuador with full immunity after declaring an “internal armed conflict” in 2024 and even approved the installation of a US military base in the Galapagos Islands.
Gonzalez won in ten of Ecuador’s 24 provinces: seven on the coast, one in the highlands and two in the Amazon. Her popularity on the coast reflects her extensive campaigning there and the fact that it is one of the regions most impacted by violence under Noboa. Coastal provinces have experienced constant states of emergency and the death of innocent people thanks to Noboa's anti-drug program.
Roxana Jaramillo España, who belongs to the feminist, anti-racist collectives Addis Abeba and Voz Afro Flacso, sees the election results as a reaction to policies criminalizing poor, Indigenous and Black Ecuadorians.
“It is important to note that people on the coast preferred the left-wing option. That’s a result of the criminalization of the poor and people of African descent,” said Jaramillo España in an interview with Ojalá. “As a woman and a pan-Africanist activist, I don’t identify with either of the two options, but I think that the left should unite against the neoliberal right in the second round.”
Support for Citizen Revolution faltered in the highlands, and the party lost congressional seats in Quito and Pichincha province, where both the mayor and provincial governor are party members. Sympathy for Noboa in Quito is due in part to his multi-million-dollar campaign spending, as well as the fact that militarization and states of emergency haven’t impacted the capital as strongly as elsewhere. In fact, some residents there want a government crack down (mano dura) on crime.
A range of public policies benefited the working class during Rafael Correa’s government, which lasted from 2007 to 2017. But critics condemned his leadership as authoritarian, focussing on the persecution of social leaders and the promotion of extractivism without taking Indigenous peoples and nationalities into account. There were also a number of corruption scandals during his term.
Citizen Revolution also bears the shame of Lenin Moreno’s betrayal. Moreno was Correa’s vice president from 2017 to 2014, after being elected president of Ecuador with the party in 2017, he allied himself with the right and opened the door to more neoliberalism. The right, which wants to prevent the emergence of a left-wing option, has actively encouraged anti-Correa sentiment. But in Sunday’s election, Correa’s wing of RC, which Luisa González represents, won a greater share of the vote than ever before.
In October 2023, González lost to Noboa by 33 percent in a run off vote. Pérez believes that one of González’s biggest challenges this time around is to establish herself as her party's leader and to emerge from the shadow of Correa.
On election day, Ojalá spoke to a trans woman who is a migrant from Colombia, who asked us to call her “Laura” to protect her identity. Laura has lived in Ecuador for twenty years and is now a citizen. She voted early in the day and confessed to having done so for Noboa.
“I'm not going to vote for Correismo again,” she told Ojalá in a hair salon in Quito on election day. “Noboa has only been in government for a short time and we have to give him a chance to grow. With him, we’ll have prosperity, I know we will,” she said.
The balance of power in lead up to run-off
Pollster Pérez argues that there are at least two major factions in the Ecuadorian electorate. There are voters who are nostalgic for what they had when Correa was in power, with respect to social protections, employment and public works. Conversely, there are voters who are inspired by liberalism and its rhetoric of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
Sunday’s vote count was long and tense, and the election was up in the air until authorities announced official results the following day. After coming third, Iza from Pachakutik said that he would not offer further comment until his party decided on a strategy for moving forward.
Pachakutik's voters come from communities and organizations that belong to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), which supports the party. The party also draws support from social sectors including feminists, anti-racist activists, LGBTIQ+ people and university students, all of which supported the 2019 and 2022 uprisings in Ecuador.
Iza became a prominent leader during the 2022 uprising, when he was arrested. The fact that Pachakutik is now the country's third political force could create an opening for Indigenous peoples and social movements to shape government policy.
With regard to González’s role and the need for leftwing unity in the run-off, María Fernanda Andrade, who is a member of various feminist and left-wing collectives, said that she saw it as progress that Citizen Revolution had advanced to the second round with a woman candidate. She hopes that Pachakutik will support González going forward.
“Leonidas Iza should work to build that alliance,” Andrade said. “It would be unfortunate if the left couldn't come to an agreement.”
As election day wound down, González appeared at her party's headquarters in Quito, where hundreds of supporters waited for her. She told the press she’ll work to create consensus among social organizations and parties toward the second round, and that she’ll govern Ecuador for everyone.
For his part, Noboa didn’t speak on election night. The hotel ballroom where he was slated to give his victory speech was empty. The direct re-election he had hoped for was for naught.
