Incumbent President of Ecuador Daniel Noboa and establishment socialist candidate Luisa González on Thursday closed their respective campaigns ahead of Sunday’s highly polarized runoff election.
Sunday will see both candidates face each other in a runoff election for the second time in a row after the October 2023 snap election — when Noboa, a 37-year-old outsider, defeated González, a career lawyer and protégé of socialist former president and fugitive convicted felon Rafael Correa.
According to local pollsters, both candidates are “virtually tied” and the election could go either way. During the February 9 first round of the election, which featured a total of 16 candidates, Noboa narrowly defeated González by a 0.17 percent vote difference.
Both candidates closed their respective campaigns with events held at the port city of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s main economic driver and a crime-plagued municipality.
As per the rules of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Ecuador will be under a mandatory electoral silence period that will run through 5 p.m. on Sunday. No candidate or individual may broadcast propaganda, polls, or any kind of information that may influence an elector’s vote. Candidates and political organizations are also prohibited from holding events of any kind during the duration of the silence period.
Ecuador’s 2025 presidential campaign has been reportedly described as a “very hard-fought and dirty campaign, full of attacks, disqualifications, and insults.” In late March, both candidates participated in a heated debate in which they exchanged personal attacks rather than directly answering the debate’s questions.
Polls released last week suggested that both candidates are “technically tied.” Comunicaliza, a polling agency reportedly authorized by the CNE, indicated that Noboa is slated to obtain 50.3 percent of the votes to González’s 49.7 percent. Pollster Telcodata, on the other hand, asserted that González would obtain 50.2 percent of the votes and Noboa 49.8 percent.
Noboa of the National Democratic Action (ADN) party, Ecuador’s youngest president ever, closed his campaign with a rally at a local sports arena in the company of some of his ministers and ADN lawmakers. He delivered a roughly six minute speech in which he called for unity, hope, and firmness against corruption.
“We watch over the dignity and justice of all Ecuadorians,” Noboa said. “This project is based on progress, justice, dignity, and love for a country that we cannot lose, that we cannot give away to the mafias.”
Noboa alluded to González and the establishment socialist party Citizens Revolution, and said “this Sunday we are going to put an end to this failed revolution.”
“This Sunday we are going to put an end to narcoterrorism. We are going to take away any chance for the mafias to be able to govern this country. Because this country is governed by you, it is governed by the citizens, it is governed by the good people, the people who want a better country,” Noboa said.
He proclaimed that, if reelected, his administration would put an end to delinquency, criminality, and “all those miserable politicians who have kept us in backwardness.”
“Ecuador is great, the Ecuadorian people are great, the Ecuadorian youth are great and they do not go backwards, they walk forward. Today,” Noboa said.
Noboa became Ecuador’s youngest president in October 2023 through a snap election organized after his predecessor, conservative President Guillermo Lasso, invoked an obscure “mutually assured destruction” constitutional clause that dissolved both the executive and legislative branches. Lasso, who chose not to run for reelection, explained at the time that he invoked the constitutional clause in response to leftist lawmakers launching 14 different impeachment processes against him between 2021 and 2023, which made it impossible for him to govern.
Although Noboa described his outsider ADN party as “center-left” with the nation’s electoral authorities, the incumbent president geopolitically aligned himself with President Donald Trump and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele — most notably in the field of security.
Noboa, who attended President Trump’s inauguration in January, met with him last week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and asked for U.S. military support to combat drug trafficking in Ecuador.
González, the establishment socialist candidate, closed her campaign in Guayaquil by delivering a speech on a stage set near the city center. Originally, Citizens Revolution intended to hold a vehicle caravan before the speech, but it was reportedly called off for “security reasons.” González, who delivered her speech in the midst of a security contingent, focused her words on the fight against violence against women and, particularly, in defense of single mothers.
“I am going to tell you my case, there are many single mothers here. Being a single mother does not give them the right to invent a father for their children. And this week they picked on an 11-year-old boy, a dirty campaign,” González said. “Not just for me, but for thousands of children of single mothers who deserve respect.”
The socialist candidate’s remarks appeared to be a response to former Blackwater CEO and founder of Unplugged Technologies Erik Prince, who reportedly claimed this week that González had a child with fugitive former President Rafael Correa.
“Let’s be clear: in the last year and a half, violence, poverty and unemployment have taken a deep toll on women. Here, no woman is silent in the face of violence. We demand respect. If someone wants to disrespect us, we say: ‘You respect me, you jerk,’” González said, and promised that, if elected, she would open a line of up to $45,000 for single mothers.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
