More than 13 million Ecuadorians will decide in October in a second round who will govern their country until May 2025. For now, the race seems to be giving the right big options, despite the fact that the current president belongs to their ranks and his government has not been successful.
According to the only poll published so far with estimates for the second round on 15 October, when Ecuadorians will elect a president, the balance is tipping to the right.
According to the pollster Comunicaliza, the candidate of the National Democratic Action alliance, Daniel Noboa, leads the voting intention with 54.87%, while the representative of the Citizen’s Revolution (RC), Luisa González, has 45.13% of the preferences.
The study, led by analyst Álvaro Marchante, placed the blank or null vote at 8.6 per cent and undecided voters at 12.9 per cent. However, with more than a month to go before the elections, experts and RC leaders warn that the scenario is still fluctuating and the scales may tip the other way in the coming weeks.
Andean parliamentarian Virgilio Hernández, a militant of the Correista movement (led by former president Rafael Correa), pointed out that polls are instruments and leave clues about trends at the time they are carried out.
“The electorate believes that Noboa has the best proposals and possibilities for change, but when they know in depth what his government plan or his running mate, Verónica Abad, says, they will perceive that it is nothing new,” Hernández said.
For several days now, numerous questions have been circulating on social networks against Abad – someone who confessed his admiration for the ultra-right Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Javier Milei – for his ideas of minimising the state and privatising education, health, pensions, among other sectors.
For analyst and lawyer Mauro Andino, “there is something that should worry us just as much, if not more, than the terrible declarations of Noboa’s binomial is the absolute silence of the presidential candidate with respect to the ideas and thoughts of his partner”.
This is because Daniel Noboa has neither rejected nor denied what the vice-presidential candidate hopes to carry out in a potential government, and because the communiqué he issued in which he states that if he wins, he would only entrust Abad with migration policies.
Another element that could hurt Noboa’s support is that, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service, his family’s banana company currently has more than 88 million dollars in outstanding debts.
In addition, the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute reported employer arrears amounting to $18,465.
In this scenario, both Noboa and González continue their tours of the country, although the campaign will officially begin on 24 September.
The two will face each other on 1 October in the televised presidential debate, when they will have the opportunity to report their ideas, mainly on issues of concern to the public such as security and employment.
More than 13 million Ecuadorians are once again called upon to elect the presidential candidate who will govern the country until May 2025, when the current government of Guillermo Lasso is due to finish its term of office. PL
(Translated by Cristina Popa – Email: gcpopa83@gmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
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