Ecuador on ‘maximum alert’ over alleged assassination plot

QUITO: Ecuador is on maximum alert over an alleged assassination plot against recently reelected President Daniel Noboa, the government said on Saturday.

Noboa won the race in an April 13 runoff vote, but his main rival Luisa Gonzalez has accused him of committing “grotesque electoral fraud. A military intelligence report saying that assassins entering Ecuador from Mexico and other countries planned to carry out “terrorist attacks” against Noboa was leaked on social media this week. “We strongly condemn and repudiate any intention against the life of the president of the Republic, state authorities or public officials,” Ecuador´s Ministry of Government said in a statement early Saturday. “The state is on maximum alert,” it added. The government accused “criminal structures in complicity with political sectors defeated at the polls” of hatching the plot, though it did not offer any specific names. Ecuador´s electoral council and international observers have dismissed claims of fraud in the runoff vote, but Mexico and Colombia have yet to officially recognize Noboa´s win. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has expressed support for leftist Gonzalez, who has said she will seek a recount. Mexico severed ties with the South American nation a year ago after security forces stormed its embassy in Quito to arrest a former vice president granted asylum. Noboa, who is expected to be sworn in on May 24, faces the herculean task of uniting his violence-plagued nation, which averaged a killing every hour at the start of the year as cartels vied for control over drug smuggling routes.