Daniel Noboa, future president of Ecuador

 Daniel Noboa was the surprise of the extraordinary elections on August 20 by winning a space in the second presidential round, along with Luisa González . The correísta leads the contest, once the CNE has reached 92.8% of the scrutiny, until 06:00 this Monday.

In the midst of an electoral campaign marked by the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, 11 days before the voting, the polls became obsolete and several candidates announced that they would go to the second round, offering to recover security and the country.

Although the vote ended up fragmenting as usual, and more than 40% of Ecuadorians decided to support two unexpected political figures : Daniel Noboa Azín himself and the journalist Christian Zurita, who replaced Villavicencio at the last minute.

With the official results, three political forces will appear on the October 15 ballot : the Citizen Revolution and the allies Pueblo, Igualdad y Democracia (PID) and Mover (formerly Alianza PAIS).

That is, correísmo against two parties without their own political capital. The disintegrated exAlianza PAIS, which even had to be renamed to try to avoid extinction, and the PID, which is participating for the first time in presidential elections.

In addition, these last two have family ties involved . Mover remained in the hands of the ‘morenista’ faction when it broke ties with correísmo in 2017. And the PID that was created by the cousin of the same ex-president, Arturo Moreno.

This first round showed that the political headers , beyond the Citizens’ Revolution, do not have the necessary strength and organization to intervene on their own in national elections.

The surprising results also show that the Ecuadorian electorate has changed . Not only because the majority of the register is now made up of voters between 16 and 40, but also because political organizations have failed in their task of representing the electorate.

The main proof is that Luisa González was the only candidate on the ballot with a true political militancy. Only she did not have to search for a political party or movement to ‘lend’ her list number to participate.

For this reason, the support that Daniel Noboa received at the polls is even more representative, because he managed to consolidate 24% of the vote on his own without having large political structures that promote him or that can endorse him with their votes.

In the case of González , the political capital is the one derived from the shadow of Rafael Correa and his decade of management. Correísmo has shown that, no matter how many times he changes his flag and list number, he continues to maintain a hard base vote.

But these two candidates also have something in common: they are new faces on the electoral platform. Both participated for the first time in legislative elections in 2021 and, although they only held their seats for two years, they managed to advance to the second round in their first presidential contest.

The new electoral scenario

For the first time in a long time, there was not a claim of fraud by any of the other political actors involved in the process. Otto Sonnenholzner, Jan Topic, Yaku Pérez, Xavier Hervas and Bolívar Armijos recognized the results, even before the vote count reached 50%.

While Christian Zurita , who took third place , and supporters of Fernando Villavicencio celebrated the support received and said they will continue on the political scene, keeping Villavicencio’s memory and struggle alive.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) began the official scrutiny of the first round of the extraordinary elections , around 6:30 p.m., on August 20, 2023. The system already presents high percentages of votes, while the count continues.

PRIMICIAS informs you about the progress of the results here: