QUITO, Ecuador - As narco violence consumes Ecuador, voters in this once-peaceful South American nation head to the polls on Sunday in one of the country’s tightest presidential elections in years.
Voters could give four more years of power to Daniel Noboa, the millennial conservative who declared war on the country’s drug gangs through an ironfisted - and occasionally brazen - approach that has yielded limited results.
Or they could welcome back the leftist party of influential former president Rafael Correa, who oversaw years of big spending and stability but grew increasingly authoritarian, eroding institutions, attacking critics and antagonizing the United States.
Correa’s candidate, lawyer and former lawmaker Luisa González, has harnessed frustration with Noboa’s leadership and nostalgia for the Correa years to expand her voter base. The first-round vote was a deadlock, with each candidate winning 44% of the vote, and polls show they remain neck and neck.
The winner will be tasked with resolving a deepening security crisis in a country that has become both a booming cocaine transit point and a battleground for drug gangs. Violent deaths have surged again this year after a lull in 2024. February was the deadliest month in recent years, with 736 homicides - 90% more than in the same month last year.
Both candidates could bring risks for democracy, said Ecuadorian political scientist Andrés Mejía Acosta, associate dean for policy and practice at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
“For both of them, democracy gets in the way, state-strengthening gets in the way,” Mejía said. “Both of them are not as committed to upholding democratic principles because they get in the way of their ambitions.”
Noboa has sidestepped - and in some cases ignored - electoral laws and court rulings in his campaign for president. Both candidates have raised doubts about electoral fraud, sparking concerns that whichever one loses will contest the results.
A crisis of violence with no end in sight
This country of 18 million people was once considered an oasis of peace in a conflict-ridden region. But it has become a key transit point for the record amounts of cocaine flooding Europe. Its location between the world’s top cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, and its robust network of local gangs have made it an attractive hub for traffickers from around the globe. Ecuadorian gangs, partnering with Mexican cartels and Albanian traffickers, have become multimillion-dollar criminal enterprises that have penetrated key institutions throughout Ecuador’s government.
The unchecked rise of gangs has brought record violence to Ecuador’s streets. Only 11% of residents in Guayas, the country’s most populous province, said they felt safe walking alone at night, Gallup reported in 2023. No region in the world outside active war zones reported a lower rate. The violence seeped into politics two years ago with the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who had pledged to crack down on the gangs.
Noboa, seen as the heir to his billionaire father’s business empire, won that election - also against González - to serve the remaining 18 months of his predecessor’s term. Guillermo Lasso, a center-right reformer facing the possibility of impeachment, dissolved the National Assembly, resigned and declined to seek reelection.
Noboa had been in office for only weeks when a gang revolt threatened national stability. In January 2024, riots broke out in prisons, car bombs exploded in several cities and armed men stormed the studio of one of Ecuador’s most widely watched news programs, holding more than a dozen staff members hostage at gunpoint during a live broadcast.
Noboa responded with a declaration of “internal armed conflict,” a decree that named 22 criminal gangs as terrorist organizations and allowed authorities to mobilize the military against them.
“This isn’t just gangs fighting for four blocks,” Noboa told The Washington Post last year. “This is a fight for ports, for borders, for entire towns. … The dispute is over our way of life.”
An ironfisted leader with limited results
Analysts say Noboa’s militarization of the country has done little to dismantle criminal structures. Human rights defenders have accused the government of arresting thousands with little evidence or due process - an approach they compare to that of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele. Intense fighting continued into this year: January was the most violent start to a year on record.
Noboa has crafted an image as a tough-on-crime leader willing to do whatever it takes to end impunity. In April, he instructed police to break into the Mexican Embassy to extract Correa’s former vice president, twice convicted of corruption, who had sought asylum. The move, an apparent violation of the Vienna Convention, led Mexico to sever diplomatic relations with Ecuador - but was well received at home.
Noboa’s popularity plummeted last year when an energy crisis led to daily 14-hour power cuts. And in March, a large oil spill in Esmeraldas state left 250,000 families without drinking water. Local authorities accused the Noboa government of negligence.
He has also drawn controversy over his recent alliance with Erik Prince, founder of the private security firm Blackwater, to provide training to Ecuadorian military and police. Mejía described the partnership as Noboa’s latest attempt to privatize security and “bypass the state altogether.”
Not easy to resolve
Santiago Basabe, a political scientist at San Francisco de Quito University, said Noboa has not provided a clear plan or policy agenda for the next four years.
“The issue of security is not easy to resolve,” Basabe said. “It cannot be resolved in the short term.”
Supporters say Noboa simply needs more time to prove himself.
Lilian Live, a 70-year-old voice teacher in Quito, said she voted for Noboa in the first round in February because he has shown leadership and efficiency in running the government. She said crime and insecurity are structural problems that will require more time to fix.
Beatriz Rojas, 64, a former police officer, agreed.
“I voted for Noboa precisely so that he can have four years of stability,” she said, “so he can improve employment and the economy, to slow down the migration of more Ecuadorians abroad.”
A possible return to the left
A win for González could mean a return to the politics of Correa, who boosted spending on infrastructure, reduced inequality and expanded access to education and health care. But he was also accused of abusing his power; ongoing criminal investigations have revealed ties between his government and organized crime. Convicted of corruption, he lives in exile in Belgium.
González, while appealing to loyal Correa supporters, has sought to distance herself from his controversies and focus on attacking Noboa. She has strategically courted “those who voted for Noboa but are frustrated by a lack of results, that feel they have been deceived,” Ecuadorian political analyst Caroline Ávila said.
González pledges a return to Correa-era public spending to reduce crime and inequality. She has proposed boosting technology to tackle insecurity and suggested funding “peace managers” to support community safety.
Sebastián Valdivieso, a 39-year-old architect, said Ecuador’s security crisis is rooted in unemployment and a lack of opportunity. Valdivieso, who voted for González in the first round, argued that her policies would stimulate domestic investment and bolster the economy.
If a González presidency mirrors Correa’s, it could create tensions with the Trump administration. Correa expelled the U.S. Navy from a military base in Manta in 2009, leaving Ecuador’s coastline largely undefended.
Antagonizing the United States could help González domestically, as it has for other leaders worldwide. But it could harm bilateral relations at a time when Ecuador needs close U.S. collaboration to combat drug trafficking - and to access better credit markets.
As Ecuadorians head to the polls on Sunday, undecided voters may prove decisive.
“People are tired,” Ávila said. “We have been through five electoral processes in the last two years. There is enormous political exhaustion.”