Violence-hit Ecuador chooses next president

QUITO: Some 14 million Ecuadorans began voting under tight security on Sunday, choosing who will lead their violence-wracked Andean nation through its worst crisis in half a century.

Sixteen candidates are vying to become president for a four-year term, including hawkish young incumbent Daniel Noboa and his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. The campaigns have been dominated by concerns about a moribund economy and cartel turf wars that have transformed Ecuador from one of the safest countries in the world into one of the most dangerous.

“The country is collapsing. The only thing I ask the new president is that they fix this mess,” said 28-year-old businessman Luis Jaime Torres as he prepared to vote in Quito. Heavily armed soldiers stood watch at polling stations across the country as state emergency services cited “grave warnings” of an unspecified “possible attack against democracy” and election officials.

On the campaign trail both main candidates were shadowed by a phalanx of special forces and bodyguards, hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2023 election when a leading candidate was assassinated.

“We´re only human, of course, you feel afraid,” 47-year-old Gonzalez told AFP from her childhood home on the eve of the vote. “There are intelligence reports that say there are risks and that they want to take my life, but there is a bigger challenge here. There is a challenge to transform the country.”