In a rundown area of Ecuador’s most violent city, a dozen police officers in flak jackets barged down the door of a bungalow.
With pistols raised, the cops ordered the six young adults inside to lie face down as they searched the dilapidated property, finding a bag of marijuana worth about $300 in the fridge and a non-lethal handgun nearby.
“It’s very little,” said the ranking captain, looking visibly disappointed through his balaclava.
Raids such as this have taken place almost nightly since January 2024, when president Daniel Noboa declared his country was in an “internal armed conflict” following a spate of attacks that included the takeover of a TV station by masked gunmen live on air.
As violence surges and the economy sputters, Noboa’s faltering efforts to tackle the security crisis have become the central issue ahead of a razor-edge election run-off on Sunday.
The 37-year-old son of a billionaire banana magnate comfortably beat left-wing former lawmaker Luisa González in a snap election in October 2023. But as the two candidates face off again, voters are tightly split.
“Security, the top concern for voters, has deteriorated significantly in recent months,” said Sebastián Hurtado, director of Quito-based consultancy Prófitas. “The key challenge for Noboa is convincing voters that, after a very short tenure, he remains the change candidate and their best hope for improved security.”
States of emergency first declared early last year have allowed police to search properties without warrants, while drug gangs are labelled “terrorist groups”. More than 5,000 people have been jailed.
Taking cues from El Salvador’s popular strongman Nayib Bukele, Noboa plans to build a mega-prison to house the growing number of inmates.
Until recently, the approach seemed to be bearing fruit. The murder rate fell to 39 per 100,000 residents in 2024 from 47 a year earlier, appearing to end a cycle that saw it rise nearly eightfold over six years.
But those gains seem to have vanished, as the country suffered the most murderous January and February on record.
Guayaquil, Ecuador’s biggest city and port, has borne the brunt of the violence, as warring groups jostle for access to cocaine shipping routes from Colombia and Peru. In March, a shoot-out between two gang factions left 22 people dead.
“We can take these guys off the streets but there will be two more outfits that spring up in their place,” one cop said as the suspects were led away in handcuffs after the raid.
Alexandra Pérez, a shopkeeper in Guayaquil’s impoverished Malvinas neighbourhood, said crime has hurt sales, with the streets deserted in the usually busy early evenings.
Still, Pérez will vote for Noboa. “He has deployed the army to the streets and that has helped bring crime down in this area,” she said.
Naboa has announced a partnership with Erik Prince, who founded infamous US defence contractor Blackwater, which his rival Gonzalez said would bring “mercenaries” to Ecuador and revealed his lack of confidence in his security forces.
González has portrayed him as a privileged scion, out of touch with most Ecuadorians. Although raised in Guayaquil, Noboa was born in Miami and went to a US university. Public feuds with his vice-president and ex-wife have led to accusations of misogyny.
His father, one of Ecuador’s richest men, ran unsuccessfully for president five times, while his mother was elected to the National Assembly in February.
“His family thinks in English before speaking in Spanish,” said a lifelong friend of Noboa.
His temperament has also been questioned. Mexico cut off diplomatic relations last year, after a brazen raid on its embassy to arrest a fugitive former vice-president.
Noboa later put a 27 per cent tariff on Mexican imports in an apparent attempt to please US president Donald Trump. But deputy trade minister Andrés Robalino told the Financial Times the tariffs had been scrapped after consultation with economists.
Despite his crime crackdown winning initial support, Noboa came under attack when the charred remains of four children from Malvinas were discovered in December – and 16 soldiers charged with their forced disappearance.
Ronny Medina, the father of Steven Medina – the youngest of the boys at 11 years old – said he was supporting González.
“Poor people like us, we’re meaningless to Noboa,” Medina said in his sparse home in Malvinas, with a portrait of his murdered son on the dining table. “He hasn’t shown his face to us, hasn’t said anything to us.”
Many voters are also upset by nationwide blackouts and a struggling economy.
Heavily reliant on oil and agricultural exports, Ecuador has the lowest growth forecasts in South America this year, after quarterly GDP fell in each of the first three quarters of 2024. Noboa secured a $4 billion IMF loan last year to protect social security and fiscal stability, though it was followed by an unpopular cut in gasoline subsidies. González has pledged to renegotiate the deal.
Noboa, then a relative unknown, easily beat González when then-president Guillermo Lasso dissolved parliament 18 months ago to avoid impeachment. Ecuador’s descent into violence was laid bare when anti-corruption candidate Fernando Villavicencio was murdered while leaving a campaign event.
González is best known as a close ally of leftist ex-president Rafael Correa, a fiery nationalist with an authoritarian streak whose decade in office saw heavy social spending underwritten by Chinese loans. Correa lives in self-imposed exile in Belgium to avoid jail time on corruption charges.
His shadow looms large over the campaign.
González’s running mate Diego Borja, who was Correa’s finance minister, said Correa remained “indisputable leader” of their party, but insisted his case was for the courts. “He hasn’t asked for a pardon, nor is Luisa going to grant him one,” Borja said.
The race this time is much tighter, with Noboa winning the first round by less than 17,000 votes. González is now the narrow front-runner with 51.4 per cent voting intention, ahead of Noboa’s 48.6 per cent, pollster Negocios and Estrategias said on Monday.
“If there’s one word that can sum up this election, it’s ‘uncertainty’,” said Mario Cuvi of Ecotec university in Guayaquil. “The election has become a lottery, a choice between passions and hatreds, but with very little policy proposal.”
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
