If Ecuador didn’t have problems, Daniel Noboa says he would spend his weekends at his beach house playing with his dogs, making his wife happier and spending more time with his children, but Ecuador has so many problems that this heir to a business empire, which could be dedicated to watching life go by, feels obliged to do something for its country. Something big.
This 35-year-old wants to be the next president of Ecuador. A new face – hardly anyone knew him when he launched his candidacy – for an old surname: that of the poor grandfather who made his fortune with bananas and that of the rich father who dreamed of what is now the dream of the son of he. Álvaro Noboa tried up to five times to become President, but he was never as close as his pupil is today.
Noboa plays outsider without being, at a time when these emerging figures have managed to move the entire political structure in numerous countries. Beyond belonging to one of the best-known, and most wealthy, families in Ecuador, the businessman was an assemblyman in the last legislature, until the outgoing president, Guillermo Lasso, called early elections. Noboa’s idea was to run for president in 2025, but Lasso’s decision precipitated his plans. If he wins, he will barely have 16 months to govern, the remainder of the unfinished mandate. Unknown to most, he went unnoticed during the first part of the electoral campaign until two key moments made him the protagonist. The first was the murder of candidate Fernando Villavicencio, a journalist who directly attacked organized crime and who was shot at the exit of a rally in Quito ten days before the first round.
The assassination showed Ecuadorians that the violence that has grown excessively in recent years had no limits and forced the voters of Villavicencio to look for another ballot. Noboa’s other big moment came with the presidential debate, a week before the vote. For many voters, that was the first time they had heard it. The businessman, wearing a bulletproof vest, spoke serene and calm. In the midst of the direct clashes between the other six candidates, Noboa easily dodged the darts, in part because no one addressed him with acrimony.
Being the ignored one gave him the opportunity to use his minutes to talk about his stuff, which attracted many voters who saw in this well-prepared young man – he studied Business Administration at New York University and has a degree from Harvard – to a fresh candidate and outside the fight between Correismo and anti-Correismo that has marked Ecuadorian politics in the last two decades. María Paz Jervis, executive president of the Chamber of Industries and Production, recognizes that “it is very difficult to identify his ideological pattern. He is the anti-Correísta option, but not so much.” For most, he embodies the center-right, although he defines himself as center-left. He is a pro-business candidate. [tiene unas cuantas] who promises to lower taxes, although he has also talked about increasing social spending. Whether she is in one center or the other, in the last seven days of the campaign she managed to add about 20 points that took her to the second round with 24% of the votes, behind Correísta Luisa González. A promotion rarely seen.
The politician has managed to present himself as the option for change for a country in need of a turn in the script. For years, Ecuadorians have witnessed the decomposition of a State that for decades managed to remain safe from the ravages that drug trafficking caused on its neighbors. Today, Mexican and Colombian criminal groups have managed to weave a powerful network of influence and control that goes from the prisons – where a few days ago they murdered the six Colombian hitmen arrested for the attack against Villavicencio – to a large part of Ecuadorian territory. Especially in the coastal area, with its vast outlet to the Pacific, where the city of Guayaquil, the second in the country and where the Noboa boy grew up, lives at the mercy of violence.
“We need someone young who has the balls to do the right things,” said the candidate in one of the few interviews he has given to Logan and Logan, a YouTuber who records his guests inside a car with a relaxed and relaxed touch. humor. Noboa has declined all interview requests that EL PAÍS has made since he won the first round on August 20. He, from the outset, can show a rich business resume. At 35 years old, he has already been a shareholder in more than 20 companies and currently remains in two, reports Carolina Mella. In addition, thousands of people work in the family empire in various sectors, which for many could generate a conflict of interest if they come to power.
Although violence is the issue that most worries the population, it has not been the central issue of the candidates in this atypical campaign, focused on social networks due to the weight of insecurity. Neither González nor Noboa have placed too much emphasis on the issue. The businessman has spoken of having a “tough hand” against crime and of the possibility of buying prison barges to lock up the most dangerous prisoners in the middle of the sea. The candidate, whose business role has taken him to travel halfway around the world and has a predilection for Spain, has placed emphasis on the recovery of employment, in a country in which only 35% of citizens have a job. of 40 hours per week and a salary higher than the minimum, established at $450. That is his message when entering his website “#Noboaesempleo”, in the middle of a thunderous song that assaults the visitor to the page and that generations of Ecuadorians know how to hum: “Ecuador, Noboa is in front; May he sow the future, may he change the present…”. A topic that Noboa Sr. popularized on Facebook, but that has returned to the playlist from Tik Tok.
A pro-life vice president
Among all the unknowns that his figure raises, his companion on the ballot is what squeaks the most in that pose of a modern, center-left, simple yet self-confident young man that the candidate wants to project. Verónica Abad, her candidate for the vice presidency, is a right-wing woman who defines herself as “classical and pro-life” and who has said things like that “women pretend to be ugly and Marxism has a lot to do with that” or has supported privatization. : “We have to take away the Government from the economic part, from the health part, from the retirement and pensions part.” It is not known whether in a strategy to distance these ideas from her project, Noboa assured that if Abad wins, her priority would be to care for Ecuadorian migrants and strengthen relations with the countries of the Caribbean and Africa. The latest published polls give them victory, but by such a narrow margin and with such a high number of undecided people that anything could happen this Sunday.
Candidate Noboa gets up every day at four or five in the morning and jogs eight kilometers. Those who have surrounded him these months say that he is a simple, real man who is tireless, although in Logan’s interview he confesses to being “sucked.” He does not like to wear expensive watches or exclusive cars, and in Guayaquil he has his residence in an old building in the center, instead of in Samborondón, where the Guayaquil aristocracy to which he belongs usually settles. More than his father, his candidacy has been supported by three women. His wife, influencer Lavinia Valbonesi, 25 years old, with whom he uploads many videos to social networks and with whom he is expecting his third child, the second for both of them. Her mother, the woman who accompanied Álvaro in his political adventure and who now does so with her son, always dressed in her doctor’s uniform throughout the country to provide health care to those most in need. . And his aunt, Isabel Noboa, one of the most reputable women in the Ecuadorian business world, and who has publicly supported him to definitively break the confrontation that he maintained for years with his brother over the inheritance of the empire.
With this support, the young businessman aspires to give the Presidency to a Noboa after decades of elusive power in politics. Helped by Tik Tok and Instagram, the son has managed to create a figure far from the shadow of the father, a populist guy, who came to towns to distribute handfuls of dollars, with some complaints for tax evasion and who ended up converted over the years. in meme flesh. If the father was a pure anti-Correísta, the son does not have a bad relationship with the movement of former President Correa. He is one of those people who manages to navigate in all waters. With President Lasso, a millionaire banker turned politician, he also lived through a time of rapprochement and distancing that prevents him from being pigeonholed. From his campaign they summarize that all of his success is due to a “pro” and not “anti” proposal. Everything is very modern, very direct, very fresh, very measured. On Sunday, Ecuadorians will decide if the next Noboa (son, grandson and great-grandson) will be born in the Palace.
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