President Daniel Noboa governs Ecuador with increasingly authoritarian methods. Elected in 2023 and reelected in 2025, he has concentrated power in the executive branch, clashed with the Constitutional Court, abused states of emergency, and turned the justice system into a tool against his opponents. Analysts and human rights organizations describe a drift toward a dictatorial edge: a leader who preserves the forms of democracy while eroding its substance. The run-up to the local elections on 29 November 2026, offers the clearest example of this strategy, aimed at securing victory by preventing the opposition from fielding candidates.

A Two-Part Maneuver

The maneuver combines two elements that can only be understood together. The first: on 6 March 2026, following a complaint filed by the Attorney General’s Office, a judge from the Contentious-Electoral Tribunal (TCE) suspended the Citizen Revolution (RC)—the largest opposition party and movement led by former President Rafael Correa—for nine months. The measure was upheld weeks later and, in July, endorsed by the Constitutional Court.

At the same time, Unidad Popular, a left-wing party, and Construye, a right-wing movement for which Fernando Villavicencio—who was assassinated in 2023—ran for president, were removed from the registry of political organizations by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on the grounds that they did not meet the minimum number of members required by law. The appeal was denied in the case of Construye, which denounced ‘judicial persecution of critics and opponents’ and described the decision as democratic fraud. Unidad Popular managed to prove that the CNE acted outside the legal time limit (23 days late) and that the cancellation lacked sufficient evidence regarding the actual number of members.

The second piece is the calendar. In March, the National Electoral Council (CNE) moved up the local government elections—originally scheduled for February 2027—to 29 November 2026, citing the risk of rains associated with the El Niño phenomenon; neither the 1998 El Niño nor the pandemic had previously justified such an early date. The effect of fitting these two pieces together is clear: the new candidate registration period—from 2 to 17 August 2026—falls within the nine-month period during which the opposition is suspended. Moving the elections forward to coincide with the suspension prevents the government’s main rival (RC) from submitting slates under its own party name.

The Alternative Party, Also Shut Down

Faced with this deadlock, the Correístas sought a legal workaround: registering their candidates under the allied Amigo movement. The alternative was short-lived. On 16 July, the Attorney General’s Office informed the TCE of an investigation into alleged money laundering against that movement; the following day, the Court also suspended it for nine months, and the CNE implemented the measure immediately, just two weeks before the registration deadline.

The Executive Branch’s conduct fuels suspicions. On 23 July, Noboa stated that pre-candidates could register through ‘any other party that has not been involved in money laundering,’ mentioning the Socialist Party in the same breath—that is, presenting an alleged crime that is still under investigation as a fait accompli. His Secretary of Public Administration, José Julio Neira—former director of the government agency that manages confidential financial information—publicly detailed the origin of the suspicions. Legal expert Mauricio Alarcón warned that what is alarming is not the investigation itself, but rather that the government appears to have access to confidential files ‘that are not even in the hands of the parties involved,’ and he questioned ‘the selectivity’ of the investigation and its timing in relation to the electoral calendar. If the RC candidates register through the Socialist Party, it would come as no surprise if that party were also disbanded or suspended.

Torture, Disappearances, and Killed Activists

All of this is unfolding against a sinister backdrop. In June 2026, Ecuador was included for the first time in the World Organization Against Torture’s Global Torture Index, in the ‘high-risk’ category: the organization documented 369 reports of torture and at least 51 enforced disappearances attributed to state agents between 2024 and 2026, within the context of the ‘internal armed conflict’ declared by the government, which has imposed 21 states of emergency, 9 curfews, and 272 days of movement restrictions—measures that have had virtually no effect on reducing crime and have led to an increase in internal displacement due to threats, extortion, and pressure from criminal groups.

Two deaths occurred amid this climate. Robinson del Pezo, who was covering land conflicts in the province of Santa Elena, was murdered in November 2025. Anti-corruption activist Mónica Silva, of Polish origin and a resident of the country for over a decade, who had demanded justice for that crime and reported threats against her life, was found dead on 8 June 2026. The Minister of the Interior suggested suicide, but the autopsy revealed a blow to the head and strangulation. Silva was investigating alleged cocaine shipments hidden in banana containers belonging to a company linked to the president’s family, as well as a land-trafficking network. The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders called on Ecuador to ‘cease the persecution’ and protect activists.

Corruption at Home

The official narrative presents the cases against the opposition as an anti-corruption crusade. However, the biggest scandal of the period involves the executive branch itself: in the Progen case, the State Comptroller General’s Office estimated the loss to the state at approximately $104 million due to emergency thermal power generation contracts signed in 2024 with that U.S. company, whose equipment never became operational. There are also the eight shipments of cocaine found in the Noboa family’s banana exports.

The result is an election whose contenders are being decided in the courts rather than at the polls. The government insists that these cases are unrelated to the executive branch; the opposition and part of the legal community counter that the selectivity of the proceedings and their timing point in another direction.

This article was produced by the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research

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