The country’s richest man’s son, Daniel Noboa a 35-year-old businessman, will be the next president of Ecuador.
Noboa does not come from any political party nor does he define himself ideologically, but his liberal discourse and intention to reduce taxes and encourage foreign investment place him in the center-right. During the presidential campaign, he has shown himself to be a family man — he is married with two children and a third on the way — who runs five miles a day and lifts weights. Ahead of Sunday’s vote, he posed with boxing gloves in front of a punching bag and bragged about his friendship with a UFC fighter. He has tried to sell himself as a successful businessman who owns his own helicopter.
Noboa’s victory is a shock for Correismo, the political movement around Rafael Correa and his Citizen Revolution Movement. The former president chose Luisa González, an unknown politician without much charisma, as the presidential candidate for his party. But her promise of returning to the past, when the country grew with oil money and lifted millions of people out of poverty, was not enough to win the election.
With 91.78% of the valid votes processed, the CNE declared Noboa, of the National Democratic Action (ADN) alliance, the winner with 52.30% of the votes; while Luisa Gonzalez, of the Citizen Revolution (RC) movement, obtained 47.70%.
More than 13.4 million eligible voters took part in the polls to elect the successor of President Guillermo Lasso. Voter turnout showed a high citizen participation of 82.33%.
Noboa, 35 years old, thus becomes the youngest president in the history of Ecuador. He achieves the position that his father, banker magnate Alvaro Noboa, sought five times without success.
Gonzalez accepted his presidential defeat to Noboa and congratulated him. “The Ecuadorian people listened to his proposals,” she said, and asked Noboa to fulfill the promises he made during the electoral campaign.
Sunday’s elections in Ecuador were held amid a wave of violence and insecurity plaguing Ecuador, with a rise in organized crime and a prison crisis.
