Ecuador’s voters face a stark choice on Sunday as an ally of Donald Trump fights to stay in power against a socialist who wants to overhaul the nation’s economic model.
In the February first round, fewer than 17,000 votes separated President Daniel Noboa from opposition leader Luisa González. Neck-and-neck polling ahead of the 10-day quiet period suggests another tight vote, potentially indicating a longer-than-usual wait before a winner is officially declared.
Ecuador’s economy is among the worst-performers in the Americas, contracting 0.7% last year according to an estimate by the World Bank. Its performance has been weighed down by power blackouts, falling oil production as well as by soaring drug violence and the expansion of extortion gangs into formerly safe areas.
A victory for González, 47, in the nation of 18 million people would likely herald a wider fiscal deficit, since she has pledged to ramp up social spending and reverse last year’s rise in value added tax. She would also realign the nation’s foreign policy, including by recognizing Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela.
Noboa, 37, says he’ll curb spending under the nation’s $4.4 billion program with the International Monetary Fund and boost private-sector involvement in oil production. The president, one of only three Latin American presidents to attend Trump’s inauguration, has also vowed to press ahead with a war on the drug gangs who have made Ecuador one of the world’s most violent countries.
Homicides have soared more than six-fold since 2018 as gangs fight for control, especially around the nation’s Pacific ports where they try to insinuate packages of cocaine into shipments of fish, shrimp and bananas.
Noboa, who comes from a wealthy banana-exporting family, is popular with investors after he slashed gasoline subsidies and raised taxes to secure financing from the IMF and other multilateral lenders.
Ecuador’s sovereign bonds are the worst performers in emerging markets this year, with a slump that began after González did much better than polls had forecast in the first round. A win for the incumbent would be likely to trigger a rally in the nation’s sovereign bonds, while a defeat would accelerate the selloff.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and are scheduled to close at 5 p.m., with first results expected later in the evening.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
