Ecuador Opposition Says Noboa and the Courts Are Blocking Them From November’s Elections

ECUADOR · POLITICS

Ecuador’s main opposition coalition, Alianza Ciudadana, has accused President Daniel Noboa and the country’s judiciary of engineering the exclusion of their strongest candidates from November’s regional elections, the most serious democratic confrontation of his government.

The accusation, in plain terms

On 24 August the Alianza Ciudadana coalition went public with a sweeping charge. It said the government and the courts are working together to keep the opposition off the ballot in November’s local elections.

The coalition unites four left-leaning parties, including Revolución Ciudadana, the movement of former president Rafael Correa. It is the largest opposition force in the country.

Gustavo Vallejo, president of the Ecuadorian Socialist Party, put the case bluntly. He said the persecution of those who think differently has become a constant, citing an electoral reform, party suspensions and the disqualification of authorities seeking re-election.

Natasha Rojas of Unidad Popular was more direct still. The government knows it loses a fair election, she said, and that is why it proscribes parties and candidates who could win.

A year of suspensions and dissolutions

The complaint rests on a sequence of decisions. In March an electoral judge suspended Revolución Ciudadana for nine months, acting on a request from Prosecutor General Carlos Alarcón.

The underlying case alleges the party received campaign funds linked to Venezuela in the 2023 snap election. The party was not given the chance to present a defence before the suspension took effect.

In April the National Electoral Council, known by its Spanish initials CNE, dissolved two more opposition parties, Construye and Unidad Popular. It said they failed reporting requirements for membership records.

In July the Contentious Electoral Tribunal, the TCE, temporarily suspended the Amigo party. The move barred it from the November vote.

The video and the delegate of Portoviejo

The freshest piece of the accusation concerns Portoviejo, capital of Manabí province. The coalition asked the CNE to remove its delegate there after he was seen meeting a ruling-party candidate.

According to the coalition, a video shows provincial electoral officials meeting privately with the candidate of Noboa’s ADN party for the prefecture of Guayas. Electoral delegates are meant to be neutral referees.

The same province is where Luisa González, twice the opposition’s presidential candidate, was blocked. The provincial electoral board denied her registration for the Manabí prefecture after a challenge filed by ruling-party representatives.

Gabriela Rivadeneira, president of Revolución Ciudadana, said the movement will use every legal, institutional, political and social channel. The right of people to choose, she said, is at stake.

A calendar that shrank the campaign

Context matters here. In March the CNE moved the local elections forward, from February 2027 to November 2026, citing forecasts of a strong El Niño weather event.

The change cut the official campaign from about 45 days to roughly 15. Analysts at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank, say both the date change and the suspensions favour the governing party.

The stakes are unusually broad for a local vote. November’s elections choose prefects, mayors and councillors, but also members of a citizens’ council that appoints the attorney general, the comptroller and electoral authorities themselves.

Voting is expected on 29 November. The definitive list of who makes the ballot will be known on 9 November.

The government’s defence, and the honest caveat

Electoral authorities reject the political reading. The CNE says its decisions are technical, grounded in party law and reporting duties, and not motivated by political interests.

The honest caveat cuts the other way too. The exclusion charge is the opposition’s framing, and no court has ruled the suspensions illegal, though critics question the speed and the lack of defence hearings.

Noboa also governs through a genuine security emergency. The homicide rate has risen from 5.8 per 100,000 in 2017 to more than 50, and his hard line retains a loyal base of roughly a third of voters.

Yet his popularity has eroded, and voters rejected his constitutional reform and foreign military bases in a referendum last November. That defeat hangs over every decision since.

What to watch from here

The first date is 9 November, when the final ballots are set. Whether González and the Quito mayor, Pabel Muñoz, appear on them will define the campaign.

The second is the coalition’s threat to go international. An appeal to the Organization of American States or the Inter-American Commission would put Ecuador’s democracy formally on the region’s agenda.

The third is turnout itself. Opposition figures now run under borrowed party labels, and a confused ballot usually punishes the challengers first.

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Sources: LatinNews; La República; CEPR; Peoples Dispatch; Inter-American Dialogue; CNE statements.

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