{"id":13121,"date":"2025-02-13T11:38:34","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T11:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/13\/ecuadors-president-questions-first-round-election-results-in-a-claim-ruled-out-by-election-observers\/"},"modified":"2025-02-13T11:38:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T11:38:34","slug":"ecuadors-president-questions-first-round-election-results-in-a-claim-ruled-out-by-election-observers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/13\/ecuadors-president-questions-first-round-election-results-in-a-claim-ruled-out-by-election-observers\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecuador\u2019s president questions first-round election results in a claim ruled out by election observers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ecuador\u2019s President Daniel Noboa claimed, without evidence, that the first round of the country\u2019s presidential election was rife with \u201cirregularities\u201d after he made it to the second round with a slim lead \u2014 which authorities have called a technical tie with his leftist rival Luisa Gonz\u00e1lez. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been many irregularities,\u201d Noboa said in a Tuesday interview streamed on the presidency\u2019s Facebook and YouTube pages. \u201cWe kept counting, we kept checking in certain provinces that there were things that didn\u2019t add up. They even didn\u2019t add up with the OAS (Organization of American States) quick count, which gave us a higher figure.\u201d <\/strong> <\/p>\n

Noboa even suggested that \u201carmed groups\u201d were forcing voters to cast their ballots for his opponent. <\/p>\n

After the interview, the OAS Electoral Observation Mission, which had been monitoring the election, issued a statement denying irregularities in the result. <\/p>\n

It said that \u201cthe results presented by the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Ecuador coincide with the data obtained through the quick count conducted by the Mission, and remain within the margin of error.\u201d <\/p>\n

It added that its mission has \u201cneither identified nor received any indication of widespread irregularities that could alter the election results.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ecuador\u2019s elections agency issued a statement on Tuesday, hours after Noboa\u2019s interview, saying that it was committed to \u201cguaranteeing fair and transparent elections.\u201d <\/p>\n

It was not only Noboa complaining about the vote. Prior to his allegations, Gonz\u00e1lez made a similar claim on Monday in an interview with local channel Teleamazonas, saying that there were \u201cinconsistencies\u201d in the vote in certain provinces throughout Ecuador. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not trust CNE,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez added, without offering evidence to support her allegations. <\/p>\n

The European Union\u2019s observation mission to Ecuador pronounced the election \u201ctransparent, well-organized, and peaceful\u201d on Tuesday, and pushed back against any allegations of fraud. <\/p>\n

\u201cDisinformation was rife, with particularly virulent narratives of fraud towards the end of the campaign,\u201d the Election Observation Mission said in their statement, which did not mention either candidate by name. <\/p>\n

Ruling by decree<\/h2>\n

Pinto noted that the president has made many of his more notable decisions by decree, including deploying the army to Ecuador\u2019s streets to combat gangs and building a new prison for 800 of the country\u2019s most violent criminals. <\/p>\n

Noboa last year stunned much of Latin America when he ordered police to storm the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former vice president Jorge Glas. The violation of diplomatic protocol led many leaders across the region to denounce Noboa\u2019s actions. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe he thinks that the government is like the private sector,\u201d Pinto mused. \u201cIn his companies, he can order everything, and he thinks that in the state, he can do the same thing. But it\u2019s not possible.\u201d <\/p>\n

As to Gonzalez, Pinto said her claim might be due to her team being \u201csure they were going to win.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rampant crime has transformed the once tranquil country into one plagued by violence and turf wars between drug cartels. <\/p>\n

Much of the violence has centered around the country\u2019s coast, in provinces where Noboa\u2019s campaign fared poorly. Guayas province, for example, experienced over 3,000 homicides in 2024, public data shows. According to the latest tallies on Wednesday, Gonzalez earned nearly 49% of the vote there compared to Noboa\u2019s 43.7%. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to understand, we have almost 10% of the population that votes for Luisa – not because they think Luisa is a good person,\u201d said Pinto. \u201cThey vote for Luisa because they don\u2019t want to vote for Noboa.\u201d <\/p>\n

Noboa\u2019s statement about armed groups supposedly forcing voters to support his opponent is \u201cdangerous,\u201d Pinto said, \u201cbecause he\u2019s saying we have no sovereignty, we have no control over these areas.\u201d <\/p>\n

The assertion amounts to an endorsement from the sitting president that Ecuador is a \u201cnarco state,\u201d Pinto added. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ecuador\u2019s President Daniel Noboa claimed, without evidence, that the first round of the country\u2019s presidential election was rife with \u201cirregularities\u201d after he made it to the second round with a slim lead \u2014 which authorities have called a technical tie with his leftist rival Luisa Gonz\u00e1lez. \u201cThere have been many irregularities,\u201d Noboa said in a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}