After storming Mexico’s embassy, Ecuador’s president tightens his grip on power—and dares the region to stop him.
Daniel Noboa defeated candidate Luisa González by nearly 13 percentage points. González is affiliated with former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa.
More than 13.7 million Ecuadorians participated in the electoral process in the South American country, where current President Daniel Noboa emerged victorious.
Daniel Noboa has been re-elected as President of Ecuador with 56.13% of the votes, compared to 43.87% for the Correa-backed Luisa González, with 75.82% of the ballots counted, according to data from the National Electoral Council (CNE).
With a quarter of the votes still to be counted, the leader and candidate of the National Democratic Action (ADN) party holds a lead of approximately one million votes over González, candidate of the Citizen Revolution party, led by former President Rafael Correa (2007–2017).
Noboa has been monitoring the vote count from his beach residence in the town of Olón, located in the coastal province of Santa Elena, where he voted earlier in the day with his family. Meanwhile, González is at the Citizen Revolution headquarters in Quito.
During the campaign, Noboa stated that if re-elected, he would promote a Constitutional Assembly to replace the current Constitution, approved in 2008 during Correa’s presidency. The goal would be to strengthen his fight against organized crime and implement economic liberalization reforms.
Sheinbaum and Noboa: A Cold Relationship
Noboa has stated that he has not had any communication with Mexico’s president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, and the silence is not coincidental. Relations between the two leaders have grown tense following Ecuador’s controversial police raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito in early April 2024, an unprecedented breach of diplomatic protocol that drew sharp condemnation from Mexico and the broader international community.
At the center of the conflict was the arrest of former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, who had sought asylum in the Mexican embassy. Noboa’s decision to forcibly remove Glas from embassy grounds triggered a diplomatic rupture between the two nations. Sheinbaum, then still a prominent figure in Mexico’s political scene, publicly denounced Noboa’s actions as “authoritarian” and “dangerous for democracy.”
Sheinbaum’s political alignment with left-leaning governments in Latin America also clashes with Noboa’s more centrist-to-conservative stance and his aggressive security strategy. While Noboa has prioritized military-led crackdowns on drug cartels, Sheinbaum has emphasized social policy and diplomatic negotiation in addressing security issues.
Their differing visions for Latin America’s future—and the recent diplomatic fallout—make for a frosty relationship likely to remain strained in the near term.
This Sunday, over 13.7 million Ecuadorians were called to vote to decide whether to re-elect Noboa for a full term or return the Correa movement to power through González, who would have become Ecuador’s first female president.
According to the CNE’s final report, 83.7% of eligible voters cast their ballots.
The elections took place under tight security, with nearly 100,000 security forces deployed—including almost 60,000 police officers and 40,000 military personnel assigned to secure polling stations.
Since early 2024, Ecuador has been under a state of “internal armed conflict” declared by President Noboa to confront organized crime and curb escalating violence. The country now ranks among the highest in Latin America in homicide rates, with an alarming trend in early 2025 of one murder per hour.
