A presidential challenger in Ecuador plans to formally challenge the result of Sunday’s election, claiming widespread fraud, she announced on Wednesday.
Election authorities have said incumbent President Daniel Noboa secured a second full term after sweeping the runoff vote that was held after a tight first round back in February.
Noboa leads the official vote tally by more than a million votes with 55.62 percent support, while Luisa Gonzalez has just 44.38 percent, with almost all votes counted, according to official data.
Noboa, a 37-year-old conservative millionaire whose family made their fortune in the banana trade, became the youngest ever president of Ecuador when he won a snap election in 2023.
“A huge hug to all the Ecuadorians who always believed in this young president,” he told supporters after the National Electoral Council said results showed an “irreversible trend” in his favor.
“Ecuador wants to be different ... it wants to move forward.”
Gonzalez, however, has alleged that there was “grotesque” fraud and said late on Wednesday she would contest the results with the National Electoral Council, without specifying when.
Results must be challenged within two days after the vote count closes.
“All of these findings, which are very serious, will be presented to authorities,” she said, going on to say that officials were “unfortunately, under the thumb of those in power.”
The president of the National Electoral Council, Diana Atamaint, said in an interview with TV station NTN24 on Wednesday that it had “not received a single request for a recount of a single ballot.”
She said that Gonzalez was free to submit a complaint and that the authority would review it, adding that if Gonzalez was confident there had been fraud, she could file a criminal complaint with prosecutors.
Observer missions from the Organization of American States and the European Union, as well as the United States, have all stated that Noboa easily won the vote.
EU observers labelled the election transparent and well-organized, strongly rejecting allegations of fraud.
In recent days, Gonzalez’s opposition coalition has collapsed due to her claims of electoral skulduggery, with members of her own Citizens’ Revolution party recognizing Noboa’s victory.
On Wednesday, her largest allied party, the RETO Movement, congratulated Noboa, leaving few backers of Gonzalez, who is a close associate of former socialist president Rafael Correa.
Her defeat and subsequent claims of fraud seem “to have left Correismo (Gonzalez’s coalition) in complete disarray,” analysts at investment group BancTrust said on Thursday.
They went on to say that this disorder on the left would improve Noboa’s chances of forming a majority bloc in the National Assembly.
The president’s National Democratic Action Party holds 66 seats out of the assembly’s 151, and the government has said it is negotiating with smaller parties.
Quito’s Foreign Ministry said unused ballots from Sunday’s election, transported in diplomatic pouches, were stolen in Venezuela by armed men who claimed to be members of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service, Caracas’s top intelligence agency.
In a statement, the ministry called the incident a violation of international diplomatic norms and said the ballots were intended for Ecuadoreans living in Caracas.
Venezuela’s government, led by Nicolás Maduro, has rejected that accusation.
The incident in Venezuela has not affected the outcome of the election.
