Vice President Abad claims Noboa won election by committing ‘violations against democracy’

Vice President Verónica Abad is accusing President Daniel Noboa of gaining an advantage over other candidates in the country’s recent elections by “violating the democratic code”

Verónica Abad

In Sunday’s runoff election, Noboa beat leftist Luisa González by an 11% margin after leading her narrowly in the first primary.

Although she did not support the claim by González that the election was “rigged”, Abad believes the election was unfair because Noboa refused to leave his executive functions while campaigning, as required by the Ecuador’s constitution.

“This definitely gave him an advantage,” she says.

Abad and Noboa, who ran together for an interim term in a 2023 snap election, were once allies, but she will not be part of the president’s new administration.

The pair stopped talking even before taking office, and she claims the president took “illegal steps” to distance her from the government, actions she described as “gender-based political violence.”

Abad said she still doesn’t know the reason for the rift and Noboa’s decision to send her to Israel as a “peace envoy.” Sources in the government say Noboa objected to what he considered Abad’s “extreme right-wing positions.”

Abad defended herself: “I am a mother of a minor and another son who is in college and I had to act in just seven days to avoid the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine – which is not Ecuador’s war. It is totally illogical that I was sent there to mediate it.”

Later, Noboa appointed her Chargé D’Affaire in Turkey.

Abad claims Noboa’s main goal was to stop her from taking office as interim president during this year’s campaign, as required by law. Although Noboa refused to step aside to campaign, the Ecuadorian election council allowed the election to continue.

After a tense first round in which Noboa beat González by less than 17,000 votes, he won Sunday’s runoff by a wide margin, defying poll predictions that he would lose.

González is claiming fraud in the runoff and has asked international election observers to “recalculate” their reports that the election was “fair and transparent.”