Narco violence tops agenda in Ecuador election

Ecuadoreans cast their ballots Sunday in an election that will help decide how the country tackles a surge in cartel-linked violence — a high-stakes choice at home, with repercussions for drug flows worldwide.

Incumbent Daniel Noboa — at 37 years old, one of the world's youngest presidents — is asking Ecuador's almost 18 million population for re-election, after a brief but bloody first term in office.

His nation is at the centre of a turf war between rival international cartels and mafias vying for lucrative trafficking routes from the clandestine coca plantations of Colombia and Peru to nightclubs in Europe, Australia and the United States.

Noboa's first 14 months in office were marred by drug-driven violence, drought-related blackouts, economic stagnation, painful price increases and, opponents say, rampant abuses of power.

"Every day we're worse off, there is not enough money for anything, life is insecure," said a car guard in north Quito who asked not to be named for security reasons.

Yet Noboa remains the country's most popular politician, according to recent polls which pin his appeal on a youthful outsider image and mano duro policies of cracking down hard on drug gangs.

On the campaign trail, he has strode shirt-unbuttoned shoulder-to-shoulder with masked and heavily armed soldiers or wearing a bulletproof vest while leading spectacular ready-for-TV security operations.

On Monday he sought to underscore his hard-man credentials, announcing the military would be sent to secure ports and Ecuador's land borders would be closed over the election period.

Life on air

Despite the capture of a few top-ranking gang leaders and a recent dip in the murder rate, the scale of the challenge remains enormous. 

Ecuador is now home to a who's who of international gangsters — from Mexico's Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels to Italy's Ndrangheta to the Albanian mafia.

All come for the thing that once made Ecuador one of the safest and most prosperous countries in the region — a dollarised economy and a strategic location straddling the Amazon, the Andes and the Pacific, where ports link Ecuador with markets in North America, Europe and beyond.

The cartels' tightening grip, and the emergence of local gangs vying to do their bidding, has seen Ecuador go from one of the safest countries in Latin America to one of the most deadly, with homicides up more than 400 percent in five years.

Dozens of political candidates have been killed, tens of thousands of Ecuadoreans have left the country and the once fast-growing economy teeters near recession.

The severity of the crisis flashed across screens around the world in early 2024 when marked gunmen stormed a TV station while it was broadcasting live on air.

Democracy at risk?

Trying to oust Noboa are more than a dozen candidates, many of whom have polled close to zero percent.

But his main challenger is Luisa González, who has the political backing of Ecuador's exiled but still powerful leftist ex-president Rafael Correa.

Recent polls put her within touching distance of Noboa, with strong support among poorer Ecuadoreans and those in her home coastal region that has been hard hit by drug violence.

She has attacked her rival over alleged government human rights abuses, his refusal to step back from presidential duties during the campaign and for ordering the storming of the Mexican Embassy to arrest a rival.

On Monday she made her closing campaign arguments, painting him as an authoritarian-in-waiting.

"I will defend at all costs my country's democracy, which today is at risk," she said in a campaign social media post. 

"He's broken the rule of law, he's violated the constitution and the law," she said. 

Experts believe that González's election would signal a shift in approach to both drug violence and toward foreign partners.

She has floated the idea of talks with some groups and stressed the need for human rights to be respected — clearly distancing herself from Noboa's "iron fist" approach.

She has also slammed Noboa's close ties with the United States, accusing him of doing little while Ecuadoreans are being "hunted, chained and expelled from the United States, treated like animals."

Noboa has allowed US military personnel to operate in the country and backed lifting a ban on foreign military bases, paving the way for a possible reopening of the US Air Force facility at Manta.

But unless González or Noboa can secure 50 percent of the vote, or beat the other by 10 percentage points, an April runoff will be held.

Polls will open from 7am to 5pm local time on Sunday in the presidential and legislative poll, where voting is obligatory.

— TIMES/AFP