Ecuadorians will return to the polls in ten months, for the sixth time in five years. In that short period that remains and against time, President Daniel Noboa will seek re-election. The young president is optimistic because he enjoys a positive rating from 68% of voters, according to the pollster Cedatos, which increased after the results of the popular consultation and referendum held on April 21. Noboa attributes the results as a “goal” for having obtained a resounding approval in 9 of the 11 questions, which also served to measure himself against his opponents. But in a volatile country with multiple crises like Ecuador, having won a plebiscite does not guarantee anyone staying in the Carondelet Palace.
Noboa’s main challenge is to demonstrate that his economic and security project will give results. Above all, because the support that people gave him at the polls was explicit in the questions related to security, the main concern of Ecuadorians, which also affects the economy. After the victory in the consultation, the president made a new promise: “Now we will have more tools to fight crime and restore peace to Ecuadorian families,” said Noboa, and this is what he will have to prove in the next 13 months. they remain in power. “It must present results resulting from the tools provided in this consultation,” explains Caroline Ávila, political analyst. “As well as the three percentage points that he increased in VAT to finance the security plan,” she adds.
But Noboa has demonstrated the ability to not give many explanations, a short rhetoric and, still, maintain his popularity, as has happened with his security plan, called Fénix, of which there are no more details. In addition to militarization, it is not known what the strategy is to restore tranquility in the neighborhoods that coexist with violence, they are areas where the public force does not enter and where criminal groups were born there, many are children of poverty, the hunger, unemployment and lack of opportunities. There are no results in that area either. The Government has preferred to concentrate on using the strategy of “effects and media coups,” explains Pablo Medina, professor of Political Science at the San Francisco University.
The first blow was the declaration of an internal armed conflict a few months after beginning to govern. Later, the capture of Jorge Glas, even through a questioned and unjustifiable mechanism such as attacking the Mexican Embassy, earned the president a new moment of acceptance. Another coup was the popular consultation and the capture of one of the criminals who escaped from the Colón Pico prison. Under the design of that plan, before September, when Noboa has to register his candidacy for the Presidency, “he is going to need a new coup and another one before the elections,” explains Medina. If the energy crisis, which has left the country in darkness for eight hours a day, does not end up wearing down the Government and further compromising the challenges in economic growth, which the latest IMF report has projected will grow only 0 .1% in 2024, the lowest in Latin America.
The analysts consulted believe that the Government’s handling of crises could make it lose credibility. “The way the electoral campaign was carried out was dangerous based on its credibility, he accused his political opponents of sabotage, then the Government abandoned that idea, which generated contradictions and gained enemies,” says Ávila. The same has happened with the insecurity crisis, since it raises expectations that the state of exception and militarization are the solution to the problem. However, the results are not yet visible, “people are beginning to wonder if there is a relationship between what is being communicated to me and reality,” adds Medina.
The president wanted to make it clear that he is already playing as a candidate. She did it in a photograph where she carries a cardboard replica of him, which was part of her 2023 campaign. At that time it quickly went viral on social networks until it became a symbol. With the message came the first movements within his close circle, changes that usually occur in the first year of office. The same night of the popular consultation, after knowing the preliminary results, Noboa thanked Mónica Palencia, Minister of Government, and assigned her the Ministry of the Interior, key in security issues. In his replacement, he entrusted the management to his close friend Michele Sensi Contugi, a rubber and plastics businessman and main financier of the presidential campaign. He also changed the Minister of Education and the Secretary of Communication.
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