Noboa notches election win in Ecuador, as rival seeks recount

QUITO: Support for Ecuadorean leftist Luisa Gonzalez's call for a recount in the country's presidential election was fracturing early on Monday, as members of her own party said President Daniel Noboa had secured a full term in Sunday's vote. Noboa's support was holding at 55.65% early on Monday, the level at which it remained for nearly the entire count. Gonzalez has 44.35% support.

Noboa and electoral authorities said that he had roundly won the contest, leading by more than 1 million votes in a surprising sweep after a tight February first round, when he finished ahead by just over 16,700 votes.

Gonzalez told supporters on Sunday she did not accept the results, which she called "grotesque" fraud, and that she would demand a recount. But she offered no details of her recount demand, nor did she immediately call for protests. Candidates can contest results under some conditions after the official count closes. As of Monday morning, just 1.25% of ballot boxes remained to be counted and only 1.71% registered some kind of irregularity. Noboa, Gonzalez and her mentor, former President Rafael Correa, had all warned of the potential for fraud ahead of the vote.

In the second round, each candidate had some 45,000 observers from their parties at polling places, a major uptick for Noboa, who had few observers in the first round. Though Correa and Gonzalez's party, Citizens' Revolution (RC), doubled down on fraud allegations in a statement on Monday, influential party members were individually recognising Noboa's victory. "If the people elected him, we must respect it. Whether we like it or not, the people voted democratically and we must be honest and recognise it," Aquiles Alvarez, the RC mayor of Ecuador's largest city Guayaquil, said on X. "The Ecuadorean people have expressed themselves at the ballot box. We wish the re-elected President Daniel Noboa the greatest success," said Leonardo Orlando, the prefect of Manabi province, an RC stronghold, on social media. Ecuador's international bonds rose between 12 and 15 cents each in price on Monday on Noboa's victory.

Noboa focused his second-round campaign on the populous coastal provinces, which have suffered significant violence and where he roundly lost in the first round, repeatedly visiting the area alongside his wife and mother. Correa, who was president for a decade until 2017, was convicted of corruption and sentenced to prison in a 2020 decision he attributed to political persecution. He has lived in Belgium since he left office. Murders, gun smuggling, fuel theft, extortion and other crimes carried out by local criminal groups allied with Mexican cartels and the Albanian mafia have spiked over the last five years in Ecuador. Meanwhile, the economy has struggled to recover post-pandemic and unemployment has risen. — Reuters