• Gonzalez should be the favorite, but she has campaigned poorly. If the campaign continues as it has, Noboa will win.

The second round of Ecuador’s presidential election will see Luisa González versus Daniel Noboa. My perception of both of these candidates has flipped in the past month. 

When I first heard Luisa González was running for Rafael Correa’s party, Movimiento Revolución Ciudadana, I thought, “she’ll be a great candidate.” She seemed like the sort of candidate who could successfully rally the base but was independent enough to navigate the movement towards a post-Correa institutionalization and compete for voters who generally dislike the former president. Correa-backed candidates did well in municipal elections earlier this year by demonstrating a level of pragmatism, moderation, and independence, suggesting a leftwing presidential candidate campaigning in that framework could win a majority in the country. Instead, González focused her first round vote on promoting the Correa legacy and winning that base vote. It was enough to get a third of the vote in the first round and guarantee a spot in the second round, but it will prove to be a terrible second round strategy. She can definitely win if she refreshes her message and stops leaning into the base, but if her second round messaging sounds like the first round, she won’t be able to break through to win a majority.

My initial perception of Daniel Noboa was that he is Ecuador’s version of Enrique Peña Nieto, a young fresh face on a dinosaur of a disliked political movement. And maybe that’s still correct, but he’s certainly doing a good job working with what he has. Noboa’s messaging about poverty, social spending, and security is right in line with where Ecuadorian public opinion is, and he is able to deliver those messages well both in person and on television. In short, Daniel Noboa is proving to be what his father never was: a brilliant campaigner.

González should be the favorite in the second round, but her poor first round campaign performance makes her the underdog. If the campaign continues as it has, Noboa will win, much like how Lasso eclipsed Correa’s prior chosen successor, Andrés Arauz.

González will be pressured by her party to go negative, attacking Noboa as a fraud and a rightwing neoliberal whose austerity plans will harm the average person’s household. The Correa playbook is all about attacking opponents and polarizing the race. 

While almost certainly pressured by his rightwing allies to go on the attack against Correa, Noboa has kept his message positive and focused on the future, something that is doing well in an anti-incumbent environment where everyone is tired of the old political narratives. Still, the pressure to go negative will be high as Noboa is on the receiving end of attacks that he avoided in the first round by staying well below the radar in polling. 

The extractives vote matters.

Ecuadorans voted in large numbers to restrict oil exploration in the Yasuni national park and mining in areas of the Andes near Quito. Voters in the country want greater restrictions on extractive industries that may harm the environment, even if those industries provide significant economic opportunities. These votes were a huge victory for the Indigenous movement that did poorly in the presidential and legislative elections. Both presidential candidates need to position their campaigns properly to respond to these votes, demonstrating they respect the will of the people and will work within these results. If either Noboa or González suggests they would work to undo or avoid these results, they will pay an electoral price.

Ecuador has entered a cycle of political violence.

A few weeks ago I wrote that one risk in Ecuador’s election was the current wave of gang violence turning more politicized. I only gave it a 10% chance, viewing it as a low-probability but high-impact scenario. With the murder of multiple political candidates including presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, the country appears to be in that scenario.

Should I have gone higher than 10% in the prediction? Or is that only hindsight bias because it all seems so obvious after the murder of a presidential candidate, something that nobody was predicting ahead of time and that is quite rare anywhere in the hemisphere? Even with the recent rise of violence, the murder of a presidential candidate was a shocking turn of events and an outlier scenario, not one that was or should have been widely predicted.

There are immediate impacts on the election. Candidates are forced to change their personal protection tactics. They must choose whether to wear bulletproof vests, limit their public appearances, or add security detail. All of that impacts how they interact with the public and win votes.

The political debate, already quite focused on security, has taken a new turn as every candidate must now answer critical questions about how they would respond to gangs who are overtly threatening politicians. This has helped Noboa, who seems prepared, and harmed González, who would rather speak about economic issues and who doesn’t have good answers for attacks against Correa’s legacy on crime and security issues.

Additional security incidents are a wildcard for this second round. Any attack against a politician or their campaign should be widely condemned, and the reactions of the candidates to any incident could become a defining moment that reshapes this election.

Whoever wins, the now politicized security challenge will likely be a defining issue of their short term. Their ability to lead their party to an election victory in 2025 will be determined by the public’s perception of their success or failure on this issue over the coming 12 months.

 Boz Hale
Latin America Risk Report 08 23 2023