Medellín, Colombia — Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa claimed on Tuesday that there were irregularities in Sunday’s presidential elections that resulted in the contest going to a run-off between him and Luisa González in April. Election observers from the European Union and the Organization of American States (OAS) have said there is no evidence of fraud.
With 98.48% of the votes counted, Noboa reportedly received 44.18% of the vote, while González received 43.92%, while the remaining 14 candidates got nearly 10% of votes.
On Tuesday, Noboa claimed in an interview with Radio Centro that the tight result was due to “irregularities” in the vote counting.
He said this as he was expecting to win with a bigger majority and the results “didn’t match the OAS quick count, which gave us a higher figure.” Noboa has not given specific examples of these “irregularities,” although he assures that he has “evidence.”
However, international election observers from both the OAS and the EU missions have said that there was no “fraud” in the country’s elections.
The OAS stated that it has “not identified or received any indication of widespread irregularities that could alter the results of the election,” but “encourages any complaints to be brought to the attention of the competent authorities.” The regional body also indicated that their quick count did coincide with the results of the National Electoral Council (CNE), and that they do not want to “interfere” with the official authorities, reported Deutsche Welle.
Similarly, the EU electoral observation mission ruled out fraud. Gabriel Mato, Spanish MEP and leader of the mission, said, “we do not have a single objective element that indicates there was any type of fraud.”
Mato explained that “there has been a certain narrative of fraud in these elections” but that there is “no objective element to support this accusation or narrative.” However, there was a bias in social media favoring the incumbent president.
Mato described the elections as “transparent, well organized and peaceful.”
Security and Crime a high priority for Ecuadorians
Also during his Radio Centro interview, Noboa attempted to address what his government has done to curb high crime rates in the country. He said that there is “management,” having just “this weekend captured a high level target from Los Lobos,” one of the most powerful criminal groups in the country.
Crime remains a central issue for Ecuadorian voters in the presidential elections. With a homicide rate nine times higher than the global average, safety is a main concern. A survey carried out by Álvaro Marchante for Comunicaliza shows that for 25.2% of the population, insecurity is the problem that worries or affects them most.
Noboa has been criticized for his approach to crime in his nine months as president, taking an aggressive approach, whereas González says, “We do not want a state of war, we want the construction of peace.”
A runoff election is scheduled for April 13 between Noboa and González.
Featured image credit: via FreeMalaysiaToday, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
