Ecuador Rejects Socialists, Elects 35-Year-Old Outsider Daniel Noboa as Presidenthttps://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2023/10/16/ecuador-rejects-socialists-elects-35-year-old-outsider-daniel-noboa-president/Daniel Noboa, the 35-year-old heir to one of the world’s most lucrative banana companies, will become the next leader of Ecuador after winning Sunday’s presidential election, one marred by widespread political violence and the assassination of a then-frontrunner in the race.
In Ecuador, presidential candidates must present themselves for an initial election in which, if no candidate receives a majority of the votes, the top two finishers go on to a runoff election. Noboa faced establishment socialist candidate Luisa González, the winner of the first round, in Sunday’s election.
On Sunday night, Ecuador’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that, with 94.03 percent of the vote counted, Noboa received 52.3 percent of the vote, compared to González’s 47.7 percent.
Noboa stunned Ecuadorian political observers in August after finishing in second place in the first round of voting, who surmised that a surprisingly effective performance in the televised presidential debate elevated Noboa from also-ran to serious contender. The debate was held less than a week after gunmen killed Fernando Villavicencio, a journalist who had dedicated much of his work to exposing the corruption of socialist former president and left-wing kingmaker Rafael Correa, González’s backer. Correa’s presidency was defined by dubious oil deals with China that Villavicencio claimed cost the country $5 billion and the mass arrests of political dissidents, including Villavicencio.
Banana republic jokes aside, it's interesting that a majority of Ecuador's voters chose a business person to be President.
