Businessman Daniel Noboa received the credentials of president of Ecuador on Wednesday, in an act in which he announced that he will have zero tolerance for corruption and organized crime that has unleashed a wave of violence in his country.
(You can read: Noboa will reform the Ecuadorian Armed Forces to confront organized crime)
“We are going to touch sensitive chords with powerful groups, groups that have been entrenched with corruption in the state for decades,” said the self-proclaimed leftist politician, who will take office on November 23.
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Noboa added that “There will be a reaction, there will also be a reaction from criminal organizations that we will not support nor will we have tolerance for their actions.”.
Ecuador faces a war for the power of drug trafficking between numerous gangs linked to Mexican and Colombian cartels.
Organizations have turned prisons into operations centers and battlefields, with clashes leaving more than 460 inmates dead since February 2021.
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The disputes extend to the streets, where Dismembered bodies have been found hanging from bridges in the style of Mexican drug traffickers. Between 2018 and 2022, homicides quadrupled, reaching a record of 26 per 100,000 inhabitants.
After winning the October 15 runoff with 51.83% of valid votes compared to 48.17% for the leftist Luisa González, deputy of former socialist president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), Noboa received the presidential credential from the head of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Diana Atamaint, in a formal event held in Quito.
(Also: Daniel Noboa and his challenges in assuming a government of only 17 months in Ecuador)
Daniel Noboa after voting in the second round of the elections in Ecuador.
Security and corruption
“Our country has the youngest Ecuadorian president in recent history, just as almost 30 years later we have the second woman to be elected to the position of vice president,” Atamaint said.
Noboa, 35 years old, was chosen in tandem with fellow businesswoman Verónica Abad, 46 years old.
(Also read: From last in the polls to president-elect: keys to the rise of Daniel Noboa)
“We dream of a country without corruption, with more security”said the president of the CNE at a time when experts estimate that crime will grow to 40 per 100,000 people in 2023.
Parsimonious and wearing a light-colored suit, Noboa insisted that “there must be zero tolerance for corruption and zero tolerance for people who betray their country by wanting to boycott the work of their president, violating the Constitution,” in a clear message to the opposition that, although dispersed, will control the new Congress.
![Ecuador](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2023/11/09/654d2a27b0611.jpeg)
Litoral penitentiary prison during a police operation in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Ecuadorian Army / AFP
His party captured 14 of the 137 seats in Parliament, which will be dominated by Correism (52), the main force.
“We started with 2.4% approval and now I am standing in front of you as president,” Noboa declared at the ceremony, which was attended by members of the diplomatic corps and his designated collaborators such as Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld.
(Also: Daniel Noboa, the businessman who becomes the youngest elected president of Ecuador)
With very little political experience, Noboa arrived in the second round by surprise.
He will govern until May 2025, when he will complete the current four-year term of right-wing president Guillermo Lasso, who dissolved the opposition Congress in May, amid the impeachment trial against him, and gave way to early elections.
Correismo, then the largest legislative bloc but not the majority, promoted that Lasso be dismissed for alleged corruption.
AFP
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