Daniel Noboa, a businessman is going to be the youngest president in Ecuador’s history at just 35 years old.
Mr. Noboa won the election on Sunday with 52.3% of the vote.
His opponent, Luisa González, had 47.7%. She accepted the results and congratulated him.
Mr. Noboa, who belongs to the National Democratic Action party, is the son of Álvaro Noboa, who tried five times but couldn’t become the president.
Mr. Noboa will only have 17 months in office until the next election.
He will start his presidential term in November 2023 and serve until May 2025.
This is because the current election happened early after the outgoing President Guillermo Lasso dissolved parliament during an impeachment trial.
If he wants, he can run for the 2025-29 presidential term.
Mr. Noboa will officially become the president on November 25, just five days before his 36th birthday.
After winning the election, Mr. Noboa spoke to his supporters and said, “Tomorrow we start to work for this new Ecuador, we start working to rebuild a country seriously battered by violence, by corruption, and by hate”
Ecuador has faced more gang violence in recent years, and the presidential campaign was marked by the killing of candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August.
He was a journalist who fought against corruption.
Violent crime has gone up, and Ecuador has become a center for drug gangs because it’s between Colombia and Peru, the top two cocaine-producing countries in the world.
Mr. Noboa has a plan to deal with this.
He suggests moving the most dangerous criminals to prison ships off the coast of Ecuador to break up the deadly prison gangs.
He also wants to improve security at the country’s borders and ports to stop drug trafficking.
He thinks installing scanners can help catch more cocaine shipments.
He also promised to create more jobs to appeal to the voters.
