Businessman Daniel Noboa become the youngest president in Ecuador’s history, at 35 years old after the electoral authority declared him the victor and socialist rival Luisa Gonzalez conceded defeat.
Noboa vowed that “tomorrow we begin work to rebuild a country that has been severely hit by violence, corruption and hatred.”
On Sunday, Noboa told supporters in his home town of Olon in the southwest his goal was “to restore peace, to bring back education to the youth and create jobs”. He pledged to begin work to rebuild the country ravaged in violence.
Violent crime has also risen dramatically and Ecuador has become a hub for drug gangs due to its location between Colombia and Peru, the top two producers of cocaine in the world.
The fighting has seen at least 460 inmates massacred in prisons since February 2021 and many beheaded or burned alive in mass riots.
The bloodbath has spilled into the streets, with gangs dangling headless corpses from city bridges and detonating car bombs outside police stations in a show of force.
In August, the violence claimed the life of anti-graft and anti-cartel presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, mowed down in a barrage of sub-machine-gun fire after a campaign speech.
Ecuadorans voted for 10 hours on Sunday with no reports of violence, watched over by some 100,000 police and soldiers.
“May we elect the best president because (he or she) will govern a country that is destroyed to address all these problems such as insecurity,” an Indigenous voter Ramiro Duchitanga told AFP in Cuenca in Ecuador’s south.
“It is a critical election,” added Freddy Escobar, a popular 49-year-old singer in Quito, citing crime as his main worry. “I am voting in fear, not knowing what will happen.”
Noboa, who obtained some 52 percent of the vote according to a near-complete count, was elected to only 16 months in office to complete the term of incumbent Guillermo Lasso, who called a snap vote to avoid possible impeachment for alleged embezzlement.
Under the law, Noboa can run again for the 2025-29 presidential term, and the one after that.
However, the 35-year-old, of the National Democratic Action party, is the son of Álvaro Noboa, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency five times.
