Daniel Noboa has shown himself close to that country. For example, when he was an assemblyman he formed the Interparliamentary Friendship Group between Ecuador and Russia.
Daniel Noboa, as president of the Russian Parliamentary Friendship Group, in a meeting with Ambassador Vladimir Sprinchan, on February 4, 2022.
Russia expressed its decision to deepen and strengthen relations with Ecuador, on October 18, 2023. The announcement is made after the extraordinary presidential elections, in which the young businessman Daniel Noboa triumphed.
“Russia welcomes the success of the free and democratic electoral process in Ecuador. We reaffirm the desire to continue developing and strengthening bilateral relations, as well as to continue constructive dialogue on international affairs,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Noboa has shown himself close to Russia. For example, when he was an assemblyman, for the province of Santa Elena, he traveled to that country in September 2022. He did so as part of the Interparliamentary Friendship Group between Ecuador and Russia, made up at that time by:
- Daniel Noboa (United Ecuadorian)
- Marcela Holguín (UNES)
- Pamela Aguirre (UNES)
- Johanna Ortiz (UNES)
- Vanessa Freire (BAN)
- Johanna Moreira (Democratic Left)
- Jorge Abedrabbo (Christian Social Party)
Russia is one of Ecuador’s main export markets, especially bananas.
Banana production is one of the main lines of business of the companies of Álvaro Noboa, father of the new president.
The challenge of improving security
Russian diplomacy indicated that “according to available information, the elections were carried out without major setbacks,” despite the escalation of violence in the country.
Noboa was proclaimed winner of the presidential elections in Ecuador on October 15. This after winning the second round over Luisa González, the Correismo presidential candidate.
This makes Noboa, 35, one of the youngest elected presidents in Ecuador’s history.
The president-elect will assume the Government of Ecuador in December, while the country faces a critical security situation, with record figures in violence and homicides, attributed mainly to organized crime and drug trafficking mafias.
In the last five years, the country has gone from registering 5.8 to 25.62 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022. This is the highest figure since records have been recorded.
And according to some experts, 2023 may end up around 40 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, which would place Ecuador among the most violent countries in Latin America.
The rise of violence has been parallel to the increase in power of organized crime, which has turned Ecuador into one of the nerve centers of global cocaine trafficking, especially in the country’s coastal axis.
Noboa will have a difficult and short term, because he will be in power for only a year and a half . This was after President Guillermo Lasso decreed the death of a cross and dissolved the Assembly.
With this constitutional mechanism, Lasso shortened his mandate and forced extraordinary elections to prevent the Assembly, controlled by the Correísta opposition, from voting on his dismissal within the framework of a political trial in which he was accused of alleged embezzlement.
