By Hedelberto López Blanch on February 4, 2025.
Luisa González, progressive candidate who some polls predict will win.
Billionaire Daniel Noboa became president of Ecuador on November 23, 2023 with promising promises to curb violence, end blackouts and raise the purchasing power of the people through neoliberal measures, but they have all failed.
Fourteen months into his administration, political tension has escalated, power cuts last up to 14 hours, the economy has stagnated and crime is out of control with a 41% increase in homicides compared to 2022.
Added to this whole debacle is the drug trafficking that controls almost all activities within the country. An analysis by the specialized portal InsightCrime defines Ecuador as a “cocaine highway to the United States and Europe,” and points out that it is no longer a country “of drug transit, but one in which it is stored, exported and even processed.”
The InsightCrime study adds that the bargaining power of cocaine lies above all in marketing and money laundering and that the foreign mafias operating in the country have formed alliances with or subdued the largest and most experienced agro-export companies.
It goes on to insinuate that the Noboa Corporation controls 75% of banana exports and is the only company that delivers its products to the world’s largest ports using its own shipping fleet.
The newspaper La República reported that “drugs leave Ecuador in many different forms and through various channels, but exports of agricultural products such as bananas are the most commonly used method”. Here we see the reappearance of Daniel Noboa, heir to the country’s largest oligarchy, who has not hesitated to persecute any person or company that could represent a threat to his political and economic power.
On the current president’s long neoliberal agenda is his submission policy to Washington as state, facilitating the establishment of US bases such as the one in the Galapagos Islands (declared a World Heritage Site) and allowing US troops to move freely throughout the country**.** The United States takes advantage of his internal war on crime, always ready to put pressure on and tie down right-wing governments in the south.
However, despite Noboa’s political deterioration, the hegemonic national and international media have increased their advertising campaigns in his favor with a view to the February 9 elections, and they are even trying to convince the electorate of an irreversible victory for the right-wing candidate.
Noboa of the National Democratic Action party, took office on November 23, 2023 until May 2025, when his predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, was due to end his term of office, having resigned after being involved in acts of corruption.
The Electoral Law stipulates that for a presidential candidate to win in the first round they must obtain 40% of the votes and have a lead of 10 percentage points over the second placed candidate. If there is to be a second round, it will take place on April 13th.
Of the 16 candidates, the hegemonic media is trying to denigrate Luisa González of the Citizen Revolution movement who, with progressive positions, will compete for the presidency. Although Noboa and González appear to be the clear favorites in the polls, with so many contenders there is almost certainly going to be a second round.
In the government program presented by the candidate González, reference is made to the ten years of the “decade of gains” in reference to the government of Rafael Correa.
Among the most important are guaranteeing security in the human rights training system. To place respect for labor rights, both individual and collective, at the center of the model. To promote the transition to a non-oil economy with incentives for value-added sectors, seeking an increase in the participation of manufacturing and industry.
To encourage the formalization of micro and small enterprises and to carry out a comprehensive audit of the public debt since 2017.
Likewise, to strengthen the guiding role of the State in agrarian development and to guarantee all Ecuadorians access to reliable and sustainable energy as a fundamental right.
It proposes to recover the public universities and the emblematic universities of the country, in addition to the scholarship program abroad. In health, it plans to expand the budget as a superior obligation of the State and for existing health centers to be able to recover their functions with quality.
In conclusion, once again two completely opposing presidential candidates will face each other at the ballot box: one in favor of applying a fierce neoliberalism with total submission to the dictates of the United States, and on the other hand, one that tries to recover the benefits that the State should guarantee to the population without great ties to the American giant.
It is up to the Ecuadorian people to decide on February 9th.