Perhaps you like to think of yourself as an internationalist, someone who likes to maintain an interest in world events. In pursuit of said stimulation and education you might access traditional Western or Western-backed media outlets such as the Independent, the Times, the Economist, the BBC, the Washington Post et al and you might follow various key influencers on X …
Wherever you get your information it will be tainted by the bias of the institution or people who own it, fund it or manipulate it for their own purpose. Everyone has an agenda, a perspective, making it imperative to consider not just what is said but why and whose interests are being served.
Being a socialist isn’t simply about aligning with a political ideology. It is being equipped to analyse geopolitics critically, assessing it from a class basis, to make a well-rounded assessment of a given situation. We mustn’t take anything at face value. Socialist or not, in the era of disinformation we must digest our news by asking a few basic questions: who is disseminating the information, whose interests do they serve, what’s at stake, what bias does it present?
A review of the recent elections in Ecuador is a case in point. Let’s analyse …
The Facts
Eighteen months ago the current president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, 37, won the country’s presidency becoming the youngest man ever elected to the office. His victory followed a snap election giving him a limited mandate to serve out the remainder of his predecessor’s term.
This time the winner remains in situ for a full four-year term – higher stakes. The first round of voting was February 9 and, in line with Ecuadorian law, to win outright a candidate must secure more than 50 percent of the vote, or at least 40 percent with a 10-point advantage over the candidate in second place. If a candidate does not pass that threshold in the first round, a second round of voting featuring the top two candidates occurs.
The election was fought by 15 contenders including left-wing lawmaker Luisa González (pictured above), Noboa’s main competition in the last election. The outcome of round one established that incumbent Daniel Noboa and the candidate of the opposition Citizen Revolution (RC), Luisa González, were technically tied, with Noboa receiving 44.36% of the valid votes while González got 43.9%.
Voting was undertaken at 4,339 polling stations with an historic turnout of 83.38% of the 13.7 million Ecuadorians registered. A total of 133,588 witnesses from political parties as well as 1,682 national and international observers were accredited for the elections. Security was provided by over 100,000 police officers and soldiers. According to government and electoral authorities there were no significant incidents reported (see ‘National Electoral Council of Ecuador: Presidential elections to go to runoff’, Orinoco Tribune, 16 February 2025).
As a result of the tie, round two of the elections will be held on April 13 between Daniel Noboa and Luisa González.
The Candidates
So who are the contenders? Whose interests do they serve? A deep dive into their respective backgrounds helps us build an understanding.
Daniel Noboa
Born in 1987, Daniel Noboa is a Harvard Kennedy School graduate and son of Álvaro Noboa, a billionaire and Ecuador’s richest banana magnate who ran for president five times unsuccessfully despite heavy corporate backing.
Daniel Noboa himself was a business executive overseeing the Noboa Group, a powerful agribusiness and export empire, before entering politics in 2021 and maintaining a low profile until being catapulted to the spotlight in the 2023 elections when he ran as a ‘centrist outsider’, positioning himself as a technocrat focused on fighting crime.
Noboa is a neoliberal whose policies are pro-business, anti-regulation and favouring the corporate elites. He pushes privatisation of state assets, benefiting Ecuador’s oligarchy and strengthens Ecuador’s IMF debt dependency. He used the fear of rising crime rates as a key election issue by promising a militarised approach to fight drug cartels. He supports closer ties with the US military, including potential US security assistance in Ecuador and aligns with Washington and US geopolitical interests.
A Noboa victory would result in a win for corporate interests likely resulting in IMF-driven austerity and the strengthening of US authority in Latin America, undermining anti-US neighbours such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba et al.
Luisa González
Born in 1978, Luisa González holds a law degree and a master’s in government and public administration. She has served in various ministerial positions during Rafael Correa’s presidency (2007–2017), including in the Foreign Affairs and Labour ministries and worked in the National Assembly as a legislator for the Citizens’ Revolution, advocating for social justice, workers’ rights, and anti-neoliberal policies.
González defends labour rights and opposes pro-business deregulation. She is against IMF-imposed austerity and privatisation, and advocates for state-led economic development. She supports progressive taxation on the wealthy to fund social programmes, advocates for free healthcare, free higher education, and expanded social protections in line with programmes instituted previously by Rafael Correa.
In terms of foreign policy, González believes Ecuador should remain sovereign and takes an anti-imperialist stance advocating for regional integration and opposing US economic control over Latin America. In line with this she has criticised Daniel Noboa’s alignment with the US warning against Ecuador becoming a client state of Washington.
The history
Luisa González’s supporter, Rafael Correa, was Ecuador’s President from 2007–2017 and the man the US actively worked to destroy. His movement promoting Ecuador’s sovereignty was undermined by USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and various NGOs who funded media manipulation and actions by right wing movements to destabilise society giving someone like Noboa a seemingly legitimate platform of reform.
Entities like USAID and NED serve as tools of soft power and regime change, funding opposition groups, media, and civil society organisations to undermine democratic processes, and promote neoliberal policies and US geopolitical interests. If you are keeping up with recent events and Donald Trump’s dismantling of USAID you will have undoubtedly discovered said truth about these organisations.
The Monroe Doctrine, originally declared in 1823, was a US policy opposing European colonial interference in the western hemisphere but, while framed as a doctrine of sovereignty and self-determination for Latin America, in practice it was a cover for US imperial dominance over the region. It remains the case today. During his Presidency (2017–2021), Donald Trump revived the Monroe Doctrine in an explicit, aggressive form and he is continuing that policy in earnest during his latest tenure.
The present
The US continues to meddle in Latin America, using a mixture of sanctions, false flag events, coups and practices called lawfare, a combination of legal prosecutions and warfare. Many Latin American countries, from Ecuador to Brazil, from Bolivia to Honduras, have seen legal battles like this, and, strangely enough, always against the candidate who undermines US interests.
This Ecuadorian election was marked by irregularities with the right-wing government of Noboa using millions of dollars from state coffers to fund his election campaign. Noboa did not stand down as President to stand as a candidate only, as the law dictates. He was also surrounded by military personnel for his security while other candidates had no security, and several provincial mayors and candidates were killed.
González made a claim in an interview with local channel Teleamazonas, saying that there were “inconsistencies” in the vote in certain provinces throughout Ecuador. “We do not trust CNE [the National Election Council],” she said. The general secretary of the Citizen Revolution Movement, Andrés Arauz, warned via social media: “we have received information about very serious false flag operations and attacks with artificial intelligence that will occur this last week.”
Following the González statement, Daniel Noboa then claimed, without evidence, that the first round of the elections was rife with “irregularities” and even suggested that “armed groups” were forcing voters to cast their ballots for his opponent. After his interview, the OAS Electoral Observation Mission, which had been monitoring the election issued a statement denying irregularities in the result.
The stakes are high so manipulation and counter accusations of meddling will be rife.
What’s at stake?
The US needs neoliberal President Daniel Noboa to win and will manipulate, coerce and interfere in whatever way it needs, to get such a result. Why?
Strategically it cannot tolerate another sovereign, socialist leaning, Latin American nation on its doorstep undermining its imperial credentials and credibility, showcasing its culpability and strengthening Latin American solidarity.
Economically, Ecuador is ripe for exploitation of its substantial oil reserves and natural gas deposits. Its mining sector offers growth with gold, copper, and silver and its fertile land supports diverse agricultural activities including the cultivation of crops such as bananas, cocoa, coffee, and maize. Forests provide timber, and a rich marine ecosystem yields significant fishery resources including herring and mackerel. In addition its river systems and topography offer substantial hydroelectric potential, contributing to renewable energy production.
What’s at stake? More than $250 billion of resources belonging to the people of Ecuador that US corporations demand to plunder in addition to the extraction of billions more at the hands of neoliberal privatisation of state assets.
The opportunity
The elections are not an end in themselves, but an instrument in the struggle for power between classes. A win for Luisa González is a triumph for workers and an opportunity for them to gain greater influence in the decision-making process, building a system that favours their majority, rather than the Noboa privileged few.
The candidacy of Luisa González represents an opportunity to create a collective front of all progressive and leftist forces to oppose Noboa and those whose interests he represents, who want to subject Ecuador to neoliberal politics and unbridled exploitation.
In the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) Engels reminded us not to rely too much on elections: “Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand.” A resounding victory for Luisa González, if the election is free and fair enough for this to happen, will demonstrate that the Ecuadorian electoral masses have had enough of imperialist super-exploitation. The hard part will be ensuring that Ecuador is able to rid itself of the imperialist parasites, which will involve a fierce struggle by the exploited masses against powerful, dangerous and ruthless enemies.
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