Ecuador’s President Emulates El Salvador’s Bukele as He Builds Ties With Trump

Two days after the Ecuadorian presidential election, leftist economist and politician Diego Borja traveled by automobile to the Colombian border together with his spouse. They hoped to trip within the neighboring nation for the Catholic holy week of Semana Santa.

However there, Ecuadorian border brokers confiscated his ID playing cards and detained him. They mentioned Borja, whose get together misplaced the nation’s election on April 13 to hardline President Daniel Noboa, was making an attempt to flee the nation.

Borja, a former minister of financial system and the vice presidential candidate for Ecuador’s left Citizen’s Revolution get together, was ultimately freed and allowed to proceed, however he denounced his remedy on the border as retaliation for his political ties and his harsh critiques of the present authorities. Borja is one in every of 100 left opposition figures focused for persecution on a authorities checklist that was leaked by the Ecuadorian information outlet La Posta three days after the vote.

La Posta tweeted that that the nation’s immigration workplace had despatched it to them and that they deliberate to “complicate or block their departure from the nation at borders and airports, with out a court docket order.”

The checklist was shortly shared on numerous social media accounts. That afternoon, Colombian President Gustavo Petro offered asylum to anyone on the checklist who may arrive to his nation.

“This checklist has one clear purpose: persecution,” Borja advised Ecuador’s Radio Pichincha. “They don’t care concerning the legal guidelines.… They’ve created issues for these individuals with none proper to take action.”

He and plenty of observers say that is simply the tip of the iceberg of the political assaults, amid the regarding police state that has already been rolled out below President Noboa, and which is predicted to solely intensify within the wake of his reelection.

“His reelection means an unprecedented accumulation of energy for Noboa in Ecuador,” Vivian Idrovo, the director of the Alliance for Human Rights in Ecuador, advised Truthout. “Proper now, all of the financial energy, the political energy, the army, the media, the Nationwide Meeting are all dominated by President Noboa and his household and enterprise.”

And he’s utilizing it to roll out his agenda.

President Noboa

Noboa is the millionaire son of a banana tycoon. He’s an ally of President Donald Trump, and was one in every of three Latin American presidents invited to attend Trump’s inauguration, alongside El Salvador’s strongman Nayib Bukele and Argentina’s libertarian chief Javier Milei.

Two years in the past, on the age of 35, Noboa turned the youngest democratically elected president within the nation’s historical past, when he was first voted into workplace in snap elections. Then and now, he ran on the promise of cracking down on crime, attacking narcotraffickers and ending the violence that has rattled the nation. Ecuador has one of many highest homicide rates in Latin America.

Noboa has made good on his promise of wielding an iron fist. He’s tried to emulate El Salvador’s Bukele, who has locked up greater than 70,000 suspected gang members over the past three years. Noboa has embraced Bukele’s insurance policies of sidestepping rights and due course of to implement his safety state. He’s additionally moved to construct new maximum-security prisons, just like the notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo constructed in El Salvador and now used to detain people deported from america.

Lower than two months into his first time period, in January 2024, Noboa made the unprecedented announcement that there was an “internal armed conflict” within the nation. He declared a 60-day state of emergency, suspending some constitutional rights below the pretense of cracking down on medicine, gangs and narcotraffickers. The states of emergency have continued. The ninth and newest got here simply the day earlier than April’s elections, allowing warrantless raids and outlawing gatherings within the capital metropolis, Quito, and in seven provinces, all gained by Noboa’s challenger within the first spherical.

On election day 2025, army troopers, carrying camo outfits and carrying machine weapons, had been stationed exterior each room holding a poll field within the nation. They flanked the desk the place the members of the Nationwide Electoral Council sat once they introduced the outcomes that night, declaring Noboa the victor with 56 % of the vote.

The Election: “A Fiction of Democracy”

Noboa defeated leftist challenger Luisa Gonzalez in the newest election. She is the pinnacle of the Citizen’s Revolution, the heirs of the 10-year presidency of President Rafael Correa, who led Ecuador from 2007 by 2017 and oversaw a dramatic enlargement in social spending, lifting a minimum of 1.9 million individuals from poverty.

Gonzalez promised a return to the great days, turning the web page on the violence by reinvesting in the country by training and well being care and lowering poverty and unemployment.

And he or she had the help of the nation’s Indigenous political get together. This was a giant deal. The Indigenous motion had been at odds with Correa’s motion and the Citizen’s Revolution for nearly two decades over quite a few coverage variations, together with extractivist insurance policies on protected and Indigenous land.

However the month earlier than the vote, Gonzalez and the nation’s largest Indigenous political get together, Pachakutik, met and signed a historic settlement. In it, Gonzalez agreed to 25 points, together with respecting Indigenous neighborhood selections over points on their territory, taking motion in opposition to unlawful mining and moving to stop open-pit mining. She additionally promised to finish oil extraction within the Yasuní Nationwide Park and mining within the Chocó Andino reserve. Ecuadorians voted for each of those in popular referendums in 2023, however nothing had been performed since.

Within the settlement, Pachakutik promised to help Gonzalez’s candidacy. The Indigenous get together had acquired 5 % of the votes within the first spherical. Their union can be an necessary enhance for Gonzalez’s candidacy. She led most polls forward of the election.

However when the outcomes rolled in, they confirmed a 10-point win for Noboa.

Gonzalez advised supporters in an impassioned speech on the road exterior get together headquarters that she refused to acknowledge them.

“That is the most important fraud within the historical past of Ecuador,” she mentioned. She demanded a recount, which the electoral council refused on April 24.

There’s, as of but, no concrete proof of fraud, however irregularities have been found in some ballots and specialists have pointed out peculiarities within the electoral outcomes. Regardless, analysts say, President Noboa carried out one of the dirtiest and unequal campaigns in reminiscence — counting on pretend information, vote shopping for and threats.

“We now have witnessed the shadiest electoral marketing campaign for the reason that return of democracy in Ecuador, from the 12 months 1979 onward,” said political analyst Decio Machado.

“These had been completely unequal, opaque, fraudulent elections,” political sociologist Franklin Ramírez Gallegos advised Truthout. “Noboa used all of his powers as president within the race, that’s, public funds, bonuses, armed forces, journeys, along with his immense fortune. This was a fiction of democracy.”

All of this was unprecedented. Simply two weeks earlier than the election, Noboa introduced that he can be delivering roughly $560 million price of bonuses, grants and money transfers to hundreds of thousands of Ecuadorians dealing with onerous occasions. It was solely the latest round of handouts by the president in 2025.

“It has been used for him to win in these elections. $560 million is like 10 occasions the 2024 price range of Ecuador’s Ministry of Vitality and Mines. It’s loopy,” Francesca Emanuele, senior worldwide coverage affiliate on the Center for Economic and Policy Research, advised Truthout. “Many of those money transfers had been despatched to locations that supported Luisa Gonzalez within the first spherical, after which she misplaced votes. I believe that this performed an enormous issue within the elections.”

The political opposition, and poor and Black communities concern for the longer term.

State Violence

Within the identify of battling crime, Ecuadorian state safety forces have dedicated abuses — and they’re on the rise.

“We now have seen a big enhance in circumstances of torture, extrajudicial executions, compelled disappearances and overreaching using pressure, on the a part of the state,” says Idrovo. “And it’s inflicting concern within the poor, younger, Black and marginalized sectors of the inhabitants.”

For good cause.

On December 8, 2024, 4 younger Afro-Ecuadorian youngsters, between the ages of 11 and 15, disappeared within the coastal metropolis of Guayaquil after heading out to play soccer.

Surveillance footage reportedly confirmed a minimum of two of the boys being carried away by troopers in a pick-up truck. Their charred our bodies had been discovered weeks later close to a army base in a neighboring city.

The case of the Malvinas — named after the neighborhood the place the boys had been final seen — sparked protests, concern and condemnation from human rights organizations.

It isn’t an remoted case.

“We now have recorded one other 33 detained and disappeared individuals, within the context of militarization, particularly throughout the second half of final 12 months,” Billy Navarrete, the manager director of the Everlasting Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, advised Truthout. “These circumstances had been hidden. They’ve began to seem. They’ve began to turn out to be public … however there’s numerous concern to denounce this example.”

Analysts say the roots of this stunning rise in state violence lie within the militarization of safety in Ecuador, the place there’s a clearly acknowledged “inner conflict” and widespread impunity for state crimes.

“Noboa’s ‘Inside Conflict’ decree represented a second that legitimized the technique of militarizing public safety,” Ramírez Gallegos told DW. “This technique got here hand in hand with a logic of criminalizing poverty and racial profiling, which associates pores and skin colour with dangerousness and criminality.”

Afro-Ecuadorians make up roughly 8 percent of the inhabitants. They reside in larger populations alongside the coast, which has additionally been stricken by the majority of the narco-violence and the nation’s “conflict on gangs.”

Extra violence is probably going on the best way.

“There is no such thing as a doubt what Noboa will do,” says Navarrete. “He’ll repeat the method and proceed within the line of the mano dura [iron fist] insurance policies and the militarization.”

“Noboa’s reelection mainly validates these actions,” unbiased Ecuador-based journalist Kim Brown advised Truthout. She says it might not shock her if Noboa more and more used authoritarian ways not simply in opposition to the gangs, however in opposition to his political opponents.

The Opposition within the Crosshairs

In April 2024, Noboa officers ordered a violent raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito. They kidnapped Noboa’s adversary, former leftist Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas. Mexico had granted Glas political asylum. Noboa’s police arrested Glas on corruption charges. Mexico broke off diplomatic relations over the raid. The act was condemned by nations throughout Latin America as a violation of the Vienna Conference and the embassy’s sovereign rights below worldwide regulation.

“Noboa’s already proven that he gained’t hesitate to take motion in opposition to those that oppose him,” Brown advised Truthout. “Activists who oppose mining tasks of their communities have already been given jail sentences, and Cuban journalist Alondra Santiago was deported for writing mock lyrics to the nationwide anthem criticizing his administration, although she’s been a authorized everlasting resident right here for over a decade. I believe these sorts of reactions will solely worsen.”

Many agree.

“Noboa’s latest habits signifies that he’ll launch one other wave of persecution in opposition to the left and the opposition,” Guillaume Long, the previous head of a number of ministries below President Rafael Correa, advised Truthout.

“I concern individuals can be focused and harassed politically, judicially and within the media,” he mentioned. “Previously, some opponents have even seen their households harassed and their properties below surveillance with out court docket orders.”

Lengthy’s identify was included on the blacklist of opposition members circulated by the federal government. He says he didn’t personally have any points leaving Ecuador and returning to his house overseas after the election, however mentioned he believes the checklist was “circulated from the presidency to intimidate these of us who’re usually outspoken.”

“Noboa has no concern or hesitation in violating human rights or any authorized framework within the identify of supposed nationwide safety,” sociologist Ramírez Gallegos advised Truthout. “He’s protected on this sense by the armed forces.”

Indigenous Communities: “We Will Resist”

Indigenous communities are additionally involved. Noboa has backed extractive insurance policies. On April 29, the pinnacle of Ecuador’s Mining Chamber of Commerce mentioned she was hopeful that below Noboa’s second time period the nation may turn out to be “the subsequent most important mining destination within the area.”

“We are going to resist this wave of a right-wing shift in Ecuadorian society,” Indigenous chief Leonidas Iza tweeted three days after the vote. “And we are saying it clearly: we is not going to again down.”

Of specific concern for Indigenous communities is Noboa’s promise to carry a constituent meeting to put in writing a brand new structure. The nation’s present structure was authorised in 2008 and is taken into account one of the progressive on this planet, with recognition of Indigenous communities and territories and even the “rights of nature.”

In a press release, Ecuador’s Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador mentioned Noboa’s new structure would imply a “regression within the rights which have been gained.… Rights similar to the precise to nature, collective rights, prior session, bilingual intercultural training, protection of territories and nature, amongst others.

“We have to construct unity that doesn’t reply solely to an electoral scenario, however quite goals at a real course of of remodeling Ecuador,” Iza wrote.

Concern for the Future

Regardless of Noboa’s guarantees all through the electoral marketing campaign to proceed the crackdown on gangs, the precise numbers present that his efforts to comprise violence have been extremely unsuccessful.

In keeping with a recent investigation by Luis Cordova, the director of the Order, Battle, and Violence program on the Central Ecuadorian College, murder charges spiked within the first third of 2025 by 65 % over the figures from the identical interval final 12 months. The numbers put Ecuador on monitor to far surpass earlier numbers of violent killings within the nation.

“That is very important. And it reveals the uselessness or inefficiency of mobilizing the armed forces to fight crime,” mentioned Idrovo. “What the army has served for is to implement extractive tasks, or to suppress no matter try and protest the austerity measures or the intense disaster within the nation. In different phrases, the mobilization of the armed forces has not fulfilled its aims, however has turn out to be an efficient type of social management.”

However Noboa has the help of america. The president traveled to fulfill for a photo-op with President Donald Trump simply two weeks earlier than the April 13 election. Final 12 months, he signed two safety cooperation agreements with america, opening the door for the U.S. army to function in Ecuador. He has additionally promised to permit the U.S. to reestablish a military base in the Galapagos. Within the lead-up to the vote, Noboa contracted Erik Prince, the founding father of the U.S. non-public safety agency Blackwater, to supply safety for the elections. Prince paraded throughout the nation praising Noboa.

“Subsequent Sunday, the individuals of Ecuador can select regulation and order, and select Daniel Noboa,” Prince advised the Spanish information company EFE. “Or they will select to make Ecuador look identical to Venezuela.”

Analysts say that is all a part of Noboa’s neoliberal imaginative and prescient for the nation.

“Till lately they mentioned that the political proper lacked a nationwide state undertaking,” mentioned Ramírez Gallegos. “Plainly this conflict is offering that construction for at present’s elites. It means the continuity of neoliberalism, the continuity of the dominance of enormous oligarchic teams and the deepening of a logic of conflict and militarization to confront the issues of insecurity and violence. This even though this technique has failed in all Latin American nations and has solely left an unlimited value in human rights violations.”