Noboa loses support for re-election

Quito. There are 50 weeks left for Ecuador to elect a new president and for this the current president is doing everything to seek re-election without the same “sent” after the relative “damage” that the Popular Consultation last Sunday constituted for him.

In the search for his new election, Daniel Noboa is betting on two scenarios: injection of fresh resources to solve fiscal needs for the rest of the year and mitigate criminal violence, which has increased in these three months, for which he already has the endorsement of use the military, American support and a set of rules for the purchase of weapons and supplies, as well as intelligence advice. In fact, seven of the eleven questions of the Consultation had support and all of them give more powers to the State in the fight against organized crime.

However, his popularity figures are no longer those that led him to “risk everything for everything” in the April 21 Referendum: in several surveys he has dropped below 40%, after having peaks of 80% in January and last February. Even in the digital conversation, after the “blackouts” of the last three weeks, its negatives have exceeded 70%, a figure that political consultants already view with suspicion.

So, Noboa is now betting on an agreement with the IMF to solve the economic shortcomings. To this end, there is already an agreement, at a technical level, for a new credit program this April 25, 2024 for 4 billion dollars. This is an Expanded IMF Facility (SAF) type program, which will have a term of 48 months. This would be the third agreement, after the previous two with Lenín Moreno and Guillermo Lasso. With Rafael Correa that did not happen. Until September 30, the debt with the IMF was 6.2 billion dollars.

The SAF financially assists countries with structural deficiencies in their fiscal accounts and is normally approved for periods of three years, but exceeding four years, to implement deep and lasting structural reforms. For this reason, economist Andrés Arauz, former presidential candidate in 2021, says that this aims to eliminate fuel subsidies, cuts in public sector personnel and, surely, social benefits for social security workers and those in unions and guilds. in general.

The closest rivals?

For now there are no firm candidates, since in the electoral calendar they will only be known in October. Previously, political parties and movements must develop their primaries, update their members, among other requirements. Furthermore, in the next elections the Ecuadorian parliament, which has 137 assembly members, will also be renewed.

In any case, Noboa himself has acknowledged in several interviews that he will be a candidate in February 2025 “to complete the program for a new Ecuador.” And the potential candidates to compete with the current president are, for now, Carlos Rabascal, sponsored by the Democratic Center movement; Pedro Granja for the Socialist Party; Jan Topic, who ran in the last elections for the Christian Social party, does not claim to go for that same organization.

In the Citizen Revolution movement there are several options, among them those who already participated in the 2023 elections, Luisa González. Although other names have also been mentioned such as the former president of the Judiciary Council, Gustavo Jalk, the journalist Abraham Verduga or the current mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz.