Final electoral 'sprint' in Ecuador with the moderate Noboa at the helm

“I already found out that my husband is being robbed all over the country”. The joke by influencer Lavinia Valbonesi, wife of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Daniel Noboa, airs the latest electoral juggling of the standard-bearer of the National Democratic Alliance (ADN), the main favorite for Sunday's presidential elections.

And it is that half a million twins, life-size cardboard dolls of the centrist leader Daniel Noboa, have been distributed throughout the country and have taken to the networks in a challenge so that they not only appear in the beds and bedrooms of young girls, but also at family gatherings, at the hairdresser, in restaurants and on a motorcycle touring the cities.

Noboa, a coup specialist, became famous when he appeared in the presidential debate of the first round protected by a bulletproof vest to “remind people that a candidate was missing because he had been murdered,” he himself detailed to EL MUNDO.. This “moderate social democrat” rose like wildfire in a few days, reaching second place in the polls, 10 points behind the winner, Correísta Luisa González.

The surprise in the polls came immediately when Noboa added support from the rest of the candidates and parties. 10 points up that the noise of the electoral campaign has reduced by half. “The winner will be decided in these last few days,” electoral strategist Antonio Sola, known on the continent as the maker of presidents, confirmed to this newspaper.

Anything can happen in the Ecuador of electoral surprises in the midst of the wave of punishment votes that sweeps the Americas from North to South. Key elections for the region in which the leftist front dreams that the revolutionary triumph will open the doors for the triumphant return of Correa, a fugitive from Ecuadorian justice after being sentenced to seven years in prison for corruption. The Puebla Group, headed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and which brings together populist, revolutionary, leftist and progressive leaders from the region, formally supported González at his last summit, held in Mexico.

“THE VOTE IS VERY VOLATILE”

“Noboa has not won the election, nor has Luisa lost it. The vote is very volatile, the voter moves, moves until the last second before casting the vote,” stated political scientist Matías Abad.

Whoever wins of the two will only face the second part of the legislature, interrupted by the cross-death decree imposed by President Guillermo Lasso. There are 18 months left to consolidate for a second term, in the case of Noboa, or 18 months in which González should implement the plan designed by Correa: imposition of a Constituent Assembly, pardon, return through the front door and candidacy by 2025.

“I believe that Noboa has not generated the appropriate alliances, despite being the figure called to bring together all the non-Correísta vote. He has not created some type of strategy as Guillermo Lasso did in his 2021 campaign with the concept of the meeting, which called on all sectors to group together with a new proposal at that time, creative, against the same old thing.. Noboa has not taken advantage of this space of unity of the country towards a common objective, despite having the conditions, and it has given the opportunity for González to partially appropriate it with his slogan for the good of all.. I don't feel that Noboa is connecting, but he is still a figure with little resistance, a great advantage,” Abad weighed for EL MUNDO.

NOBOA, DOWN

“The results do not look very clear, as they did a few weeks ago. Noboa has lost votes, especially with statements out of context and, furthermore, with the poor presentation in the second debate. Convinced anticorreistas now prefer to annul their vote,” Michel Levi, coordinator of the Andean Center for International Studies, explained for this newspaper.

The swings of the vote have preceded the cardboard doll strategy, “which above all has managed to get people who are not involved in political issues, who never give an opinion, to make TikToks with it. Noboa has thus brought the conversation to everyday life, that anti-political people talk about politics, it is very positive for him. It was a hit,” Abad stated.

Already in the 2021 campaign, Lasso's TikTok strategy, who despite his age, wore red shoes “to fight corruption” to the rhythm of Michael Jackson's Bad. And so he convinced a good number of young people to finish four points above his rival from the Citizen Revolution.

Noboa, 35, has one million followers on TikTok and has more than 16 million likes, compared to González, with 330,000 fans and five million likes.. The revolutionary candidate's strategists, after a very restricted first campaign, have managed to refresh her image.

The former deputy, 45, took advantage of the meeting with an influencer to explain the meaning of her tattoos: two roses, one on the chest and one on the back, accompanied by a Bible verse. “When I was young, I offered my life to God,” said this anti-abortion activist.