On the eve of a presidential election that is too close to call, Ecuador declared a state of emergency in seven of its 24 provinces, including the capital Quito, citing a dramatic increase in drug-related violence.
The 60-day measure went into effect just before Sunday’s election, which pitted incumbent Daniel Noboa against his leftist opponent Luisa Gonzalez, and after the country had its bloodiest start ever, with a killing every hour.
The coastal provinces of Guayas, Los Rios, Manabi, Santa Elena, and El Oro, the Amazonian provinces of Orellana and Sucumbios, Quito, and the troubled mining town of Camilo Ponce Enriquez are all affected by the state of emergency.
This also applies to the nation’s prisons.
Noboa imposed the measure in response to a “increase in violence, serious crime, and the intense unlawful activities of organized armed groups,” according to a decree he signed.
The order suspends legal protections against unauthorized searches and entry into homes and mail, as well as the right to free assembly, and imposes a nightly curfew in Guayas, Los Rios, Orellana, Sucumbios, and Ponce Enriquez.
Noboa, who has been in power since November 2023, has previously declared states of emergency to combat the rise of drug gangs, which have waged bloody turf wars for control of the illicit trade, causing fear among ordinary Ecuadorians.
As he pursued his “iron fist” policies, the country’s homicide rate fell from a record 47 per 100,000 people in 2023 to 38 in 2024, but it remained the highest in Latin America last year, according to Insight Crime.
Last year, Noboa declared Ecuador to be in an internal armed conflict, allowing him to keep troops on the streets to combat approximately 20 drug gangs linked to international cartels that the president refers to as “terrorists.”
It was unclear how the election-eve emergency measures would affect the voting process on Sunday, let alone voter decisions.
However, crime has emerged as a key issue between Noboa, 37, and his 47-year-old rival Gonzalez, as nearly 14 million Ecuadorians prepare to vote on who will lead their country for the next four years.
A Noboa victory would likely mean more “iron fist” policies, which have had mixed results. He wants to see US troops deployed to Ecuador to combat the cartels that are fighting to control the flow of cocaine through Ecuadorian ports to Asia, the United States, and Europe.
A victory for Gonzalez, who aspires to be Ecuador’s first female president, would signal a sharp shift to the left and a likely cooling of relations with the United States and its president, Donald Trump.
An American intelligence assessment of Ecuador’s presidential election concluded that reelecting the incumbent president would better serve US national security interests than the challenger. Ecuador is one of Latin America’s ten largest economies, and bilateral trade between Ecuador and the United States is expected to reach $15.2 billion by 2023.
Ecuador avoided Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which were announced by the White House last week.