
Ecuadorians go to the polls immediately in a runoff election between incumbent President Daniel Noboa and leftist challenger Luisa González. Noboa is seen as a pro-Trump conservative, whereas González is considered as an ideological ally of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Noboa refused to acknowledge Maduro because the official president of Venezuela after his staged 2024 election and can be dedicated to combating prison gangs with all out there assets to revive peace and safety in Ecuador.
It is anticipated González will comply with within the footsteps of her mentor, former president Rafael Correa, and search stronger ties with Latin America’s leftist governments of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silval, Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Gabriel Boric of Chile.
“Safety has been his principal mandate because the president of Ecuador. He’s devoted lots of time, effort and assets to cope with the safety scenario,” Joseph Humire, govt director of the Middle for a Safe Free Society and senior fellow of the America First Coverage Institute, advised Fox Information Digital.
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Ecuador President Daniel Noboa, who’s operating for re-election, waves after accompanying his operating mate, Maria Jose Pinto, to forged her poll throughout the presidential election in Quito, Ecuador, Feb. 9, 2025. (AP Picture/Carlos Noriega)
“Nevertheless, there’s been solely marginal enhancements within the safety scenario, and it’s compounded with different issues,” Humire added.
González is operating on a platform calling for a rise within the army’s position in combating gang violence but additionally strongly condemns extreme use of power and abuse of human rights.
She “seems to have a softer perspective on the problem of crime, that means she has not acknowledged her willingness to chase drug cartels however, most likely, would intend to barter with them,” Mathias Valdez Duffau, visiting fellow on the Middle for Worldwide Research at Catholic College of Argentina, advised Fox Information Digital.
Valdez Duffao mentioned a coverage of negotiation is just like the coverage of former President Correa’s administration and would deal with whole-of-government crime discount approaches that will look to combine prison gangs into civil society.
“The truth is that negotiating with prison gangs would possibly give the federal government a short-term area to maneuver, however the gangs grow to be stronger and find yourself co-opting authorities officers, which ultimately leads the nation to the brink of changing into a narco-state,” ValdezDuffao warned.

Luisa González, presidential candidate for the Citizen Revolution Motion, speaks after polls closed for the presidential election in Quito, Ecuador, Feb. 9, 2025. (AP Picture/Carlos Noriega)
Violence and insecurity stay on the high of voters’ minds. Ecuador has the very best homicide charge in Latin America, with 6,986 recorded homicides in 2024, making it the second most violent 12 months in Ecuador’s historical past. Some 95,000 individuals fled the nation in 2024 as many communities turned focal factors of turf wars between rival gangs competing for territory.
President Noboa declared an inner armed battle in 2024 and ordered the armed forces to hold out army operations to neutralize numerous transnational organized crime teams. The anti-crime initiative noticed a rise within the army’s presence in prisons and communities throughout the nation.
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Blackwater founder Erik Prince walks with cops throughout the Apolo 13 anti-crime operation April 5, 2025, in Guayaquil, Ecuador. (Agencia Press South/Getty Photographs)
Noboa additionally referred to as for the worldwide group to supply army help and recommended the U.S. military might work with Ecuador to fight violent gangs.
Regardless of the president’s hardline place on crime, January 2025 was Ecuador’s most violent month in current historical past, with 781 individuals killed. Noboa partnered with Erik Prince, founding father of the personal safety agency Blackwater, and fashioned a strategic alliance in March to strengthen Ecuador’s capability to battle narcoterrorism.

Ecuador’s Nationwide Police presents people detained throughout a police operation after gang clashes that resulted in a number of victims in Guayaquil, Ecuador, March 7, 2025. (Ecuador Inside Ministry/Handout by way of Reuters)
InSight Crime, a nonprofit specializing in organized crime and safety within the Americas, experiences that Ecuador is likely one of the area’s “most vital drug trafficking hubs” and ships cocaine from Peru and Colombia to Central America, Mexico and Europe. Many of those drug trafficking organizations working by native proxies and different prison teams have infiltrated the jail system and expanded its community of avenue gangs.
The assorted teams working all through Ecuadorian society and throughout the jail system work with home and worldwide drug traffickers, together with the Sinaloa Cartel, thought-about one of the highly effective drug trafficking organizations on this planet and chargeable for a considerable amount of fentanyl trafficked into the U.S., in response to the Division of Justice.
President Noboa and González every acquired round 44% of the vote within the first spherical of the election. González is the chief of Citizen Revolution and is taken into account the inheritor of former President Correa. She’s additionally seeking to grow to be the primary feminine president of Ecuador. If she wins, Ecuador might see a return to the leftist financial insurance policies of the Correa presidency.

Banners with a picture of Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s president and a presidential candidate (high) and leftist presidential candidate Luisa González are pictured on a avenue in Guayaquil, Ecuador, April 11, 2025. Ecuador will maintain a presidential runoff April 13. (Raul Arboleda/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
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Whoever wins within the second spherical must deal with an evenly divided Nationwide Meeting cut up between each events, making laws to resolve the nation’s endemic violence and financial issues much more troublesome.
Saúl Medina, a former governor of Tungurahua, advised Fox Information Digital that, after the electoral cycle, a complete and decided technique to fight gang violence should be enacted.

Males lie face down on the bottom, detained by police outdoors TC Tv after a producer advised police they had been a part of a bunch that broke onto their set throughout a stay broadcast in Guayaquil, Ecuador. (AP/Cesar Munoz)
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Two of an important points that should be addressed, in response to Medina, are strengthening establishments and executing higher oversight of the police and justice system to root out corruption, and jail reform.
“Prisons should cease being operational facilities for gangs,” Medina added.
Valdez Duffao, Humire and different consultants on Latin America agreed Noboa has ingratiated himself with President Trump. They’re ideologically comparable and, ought to Noboa win, it might put him in a greater place to deal with the nation’s endemic violence.