Mutual Death: Ecuador’s Political Crisis Continues as the Runoff Election Approaches

2023 Ecuador Runoff election candidates Daniel Noboa and Luisa Gonzalez. (National Assembly of Ecuador on Flickr and Wikimedia Commons)

As the security crisis worsens in Ecuador, voters will choose between businessman Daniel Noboa and leftist politician Luisa Gonzalez in a presidential runoff election on October 15.

Ecuador, once a beacon of stability, has seen gang violence and drug trafficking increase in recent years as Mexican and Colombian drug cartels have moved in, transforming the once-peaceful country into one marred by perpetual violence. Worsening the crisis, President Guillermo Lasso plunged the country into political chaos after dissolving Congress in May to avoid being impeached on embezzlement charges. 

Lasso can temporarily rule by decree, through the constitutional mechanism muerte cruzada (mutual death) which requires snap elections to be held for both Congress and the presidency following the dissolution of Congress. “Muerte cruzada” was added to the Constitution in 2008 to address political instability, ensuring the president could not dissolve Congress without voters being able to remove them from power.

The first round of elections was marred by violence, culminating in the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio on August 9. The shocking death had little effect on the results. Gonzalez, an ally of the leftist former president Rafael Correa, led the first round with 33 percent of the vote, as expected. In a surprise, however, Noboa clinched second with 24 percent, despite being seen as a long-shot for much of the campaign.

With the runoff approaching, voters are mainly focused on security. In addition to gang violence, robberies have drastically increased in Ecuador, along with kidnappings and extortion. Car bombings have rocked several cities, along with contract killings and assassinations. A rash of prison riots that saw police officers taken hostage has emphasized the ineptitude of Ecuador’s security forces in light of rising crime rates. In just four years, Ecuador’s homicide rate rose from 5.84 per 100,000 people in 2018 to 26.1 per 100,000 in 2022. 

Ecuador had largely avoided the instability that has marred its neighbors, but the end of Colombia’s decades-long war against the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) can be partially attributed to Ecuador’s recent spike in violence. After FARC disarmed in 2017, the revolutionary group ceased its cocaine smuggling operations. Mexican cartels and the Albanian Mafia filled the vacuum, beginning a battle for control of lucrative smuggling operations in Ecuador. Since then, the economic downturn stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and tumbling oil prices have fueled unemployment, pushing young men without other options to join rival drug gangs. Correa is also partly responsible, as he closed a U.S. military base and stopped cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). This left the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Ecuador with little surveillance, allowing cartels to operate largely untouched.

Noboa promises a fresh face in politics, capitalizing on his wealth as the heir to a large banana company. Gonzalez, on the other hand, vows to govern in the style of Correa, promising a return to safety and prosperity. Correa remains controversial, and is currently in self-imposed exile in Belgium after fleeing charges of corruption.

In the latest polls, Noboa appears to be the frontrunner heading into the October runoff election. A September 23 poll found that 41.5 percent of responders would vote for Noboa and 34.8 percent would vote for Gonzalez, while 13.1 percent were undecided and 10.6 percent would leave their ballot blank. When forced to select between the two candidates, Noboa received 55.2 percent of the vote and Gonzalez received 44.8 percent.

Ecuadorians remain apprehensive about both candidates, as many doubt that either politician can resolve the security crisis. A recent survey found that 93.4 percent of voters think Ecuador’s situation is deteriorating. Crime, according to 51.4 percent of the population, is the primary problem, with corruption a distant second at 14.2 percent. The economy remains sluggish as Ecuador struggles to recover from the effects of the pandemic. Economic growth is also expected to slow down after a referendum passed in the August election banned oil drilling and mining in sections of the Amazon Rainforest.

If Noboa wins the election, he will face challenges in Congress, as Correa’s Citizen Revolution Movement party and other left-wing allies retained control after the August snap election. The newly-elected president will only be in office for the remainder of Lasso’s term, which is about a year and a half. Regularly-scheduled elections will occur in February 2025. Regardless of who prevails, Ecuador’s new president will face a steep challenge in fighting gang violence, jumpstarting economic growth, and reestablishing security.