Who is Daniel Noboa? The conservative millionaire president seeking reelection in Ecuador
Who is Daniel Noboa? The conservative millionaire president seeking reelection in Ecuador
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Daniel Noboa stunned voters when, with only a brief stint as a lawmaker and no established political machinery, he outperformed several presidential candidates in the 2023 snap election and advanced to a runoff against the protegee of Ecuador’s most influential president this century.
The conservative young millionaire, heir to a fortune built on the banana trade, then shocked the nation further when he earned a 16-month presidency.
This Sunday, Noboa will try to win a full four-year term that would allow him to continue some of his no-holds-barred crimefighting strategies that part of the electorate finds appealing but which have tested the limits of laws and norms of governing.
“You can see that he is trying to take out criminals,” said Diego Morales, a security guard in the capital, Quito, who plans to vote for Noboa for his efforts to end the spike in violence the country began to experience four years ago.
Only 16 months in office
Noboa, 37, began his political career in 2021, when he won a seat in the National Assembly and chaired its Economic Development Commission. He opened an event organizing company when he was 18 and then joined his father’s Noboa Corp., where he held management positions in the shipping, logistics and commercial areas.
Noboa defeated leftist lawyer Luisa González in the October 2023 runoff of a snap election triggered by the decision of then-President Guillermo Lasso to dissolve the National Assembly and shorten his own mandate as a result.
On Sunday, Noboa is facing 15 other candidates, including González, the mentee of former President Rafael Correa, who governed Ecuador from 2007 through 2017 with free-spending socially conservative policies that continue to divide voters. Noboa and González are the clear frontrunners.
To win outright, a candidate needs 50% of the vote or at least 40% with a 10 percentage-point lead over the closest opponent. If needed, a runoff election would take place on April 13.
Under Noboa’s presidency, the homicide rate dropped from 8,237, or 46.18 per 100,000 people, in 2023 to 6,964, or 38.76 per 100,000 people, last year.
“I think that the citizens for the most part recognize his effort to improve security,” security consultant Hugo Acero said. He added that a president who manages to make that kind of improvement “has the votes guaranteed for reelection.”
But despite the positive change, the rate remained far higher than the 1,188 homicides, or 6.85 per 100,000 people, in 2019, and the country is already on track to exceed that number this year. January was Ecuador’s deadliest with 731 homicides, of which 244 took place in the coastal city of Guayaquil.
Questionable tactics
Noboa’s strategies have been questioned inside and outside the South American country.
The country has been under a state of internal armed conflict since he declared it in January 2024 in order to mobilize the military in certain places, including prisons, where organized crime has taken hold. To the shock and bewilderment of world leaders, Noboa also authorized last year’s police raid on Mexico’s embassy in the capital, Quito, to arrest former Vice President Jorge Glas, a convicted criminal and fugitive who had been living there for months.
Further, he entrusted presidential powers while campaigning earlier this year to a government official, unelected Vice President Verónica Abad, as required by the Ecuadorian Code of Democracy.
Quito’s University of the Americas professor Maria Cristina Bayas said Noboa “has not hesitated to use the law and the Constitution to keep things working the way he wants” and may continue to do so if reelected.
Noboa and Abad began feuding before taking office. The origins of the dispute are unknown, but shortly after becoming president, Noboa dispatched Abad to serve as ambassador to Israel, effectively isolating her from his administration. She has described her monthslong posting as “forced exile.”
___
Associated Press writer Gonzalo Solano contributed to this report from Quito, Ecuador.
By REGINA GARCIA CANO
Associated Press
