The right -wing president Daniel Noboa has been re -elected as president of Ecuador, after beating 55.65% to 44.35% to the correísta Luisa González, with the scrutiny of the votes in more than 97%. The opposition candidate does not recognize the results and has accused the president of fraud: “We are going to ask for the reconteo and to open the polls,” said Sunday night at the headquarters of her party in Quito, in front of hundreds of followers. Noboa has responded that it seems “painful that, with 11 or 12 points of difference, go out to question the will of Ecuadorians.” He made these statements in front of the press after appearing before his militants in one of his beach houses on the coast of Guayaquil. He just thank his team and affirm that “there is no doubt who the winner is.”
The 47 -year lawyer and policy, backed by former president Rafael Correa, justified his accusations in the state of exception that Noboa decreed in seven provinces (of the 24 that exist) and in Quito since Saturday. For 60 days, a curfew governs from 10:00 to 05:00: “Exception states for what or why? To guarantee the most grotesque electoral fraud that Ecuadorians are witnessing,” González said. He had already protested in the morning of the election day, when he cast his vote, reproaching that at the restricted schedule the political parties would be in the computer centers receiving the minutes: “It is a way of force to not mobilize.”
González reproached the president that “he used the authorities of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the Electoral Tencing Court (TCE) to do what he wanted.” He added that he did not present an electoral license to campaign, as dictated by the regulations. Local media reported that the Correísta was gathered with electoral authorities at the end of her appearance. Since his political asylum in Belgium, Rafael Correa has supported complaints through a tweet: “Everyone knows that these results are impossible. We take the same 44% of the first round. These gangsters could hide a little more.”
The followers of the re -elected president, supported by campaign by the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, were grouped from the first hour of the night at the headquarters of Guayaquil and Quito of the National Democratic Action Party (DNA). However, Noboa was not in any of these places, but in his luxurious residence in Ollán, a coastal village of less than 5,000 inhabitants, where he decided to wait for the results and appear after recognizing them. He did not want to repeat the fiasco of the first round of February, when he stayed in Quito to celebrate a razing triumph and had to settle for a difference of just 0.17%. “Ecuador wants to be different, does not want to return to the past, wants to walk forward,” he said, referring to the more than 10 years that Rafael Correa (2007-2017) ruled.
The official candidate beat for more than 10 percentage points, despite the closed results that predicted the polls at the end of the urn at the end of the afternoon. In fact, the surveyor Corpmontpubli, endorsed by the CNE, gave the victory to González. A more closed contest also predicted the pollsters before the day of the vote. The first minutes that were built from the Sierra, a region where Noboa has broad support, so a considerable difference was already outlined from the early hours of the night.
The violence that plagues the country – the most violent in Latin America, according to an Insight Crime report in March – has led to the election day to develop in particular conditions. 56,000 police officers and 45,000 military personnel were deployed throughout the country to protect voting enclosures. The headquarters of the CNE, in Quito, was protected by tanks and army trucks; In addition, the perimeter was protected with a fence. 634 people were arrested for various crimes, including the bearing of firearms and white weapons.
With the re -election of Noboa, continuity is expected in its open war policy against drug trafficking and organized crime. Since the declaration of “internal armed conflict” in January last year, the streets and prisons have been militarized. However, the results are not being seen; Almost 2,000 homicides have been recorded so far this year, and January has been the most violent month in history. The young president triumphed in the midst of cases that connect him with crimes of drug trafficking or embezzlement. The first has to do with the three occasions when his family business, Noboa Trading, was caught with hidden cocaine in banana containers waiting in Guayaquil to be exported to Europe.
Different presidents of the region, such as Santiago Peña (head of state of Paraguay) or Bernardo Arévalo (Guatemala), congratulated Noboa for his victory. The Venezuelan opponent Corina Machado also joined the greetings.
Source: www.eldiario.es
