Ecuador’s next general elections are scheduled for February 9, 2025. Voters will select the country’s next president and vice president, all 151 members of the National Assembly, and 5 members of the supranational Andean Parliament. Incumbent president Daniel Noboa Azín, a businessman and leader of the National Democratic Action (ADN) alliance, is seeking a full four-year term after assuming office through early elections in 2023. Noboa, who remains relatively popular, is expected to face more than a dozen challengers—including Luisa González Alcívar, a candidate for former president Rafael Correa Delgado’s left-wing Citizens’ Revolution (RC) party who lost to Noboa in 2023. If no candidate receives at least 50 percent of the vote, or at least 40 percent with a ten-point lead over the second-place finisher, a second round of voting between the top two candidates will be held on April 13.

This assessment was last updated on November 19, 2024.

The country has experienced considerable social, political, and economic tumult in recent years, including a sharp rise in violence fueled by organized crime and growing criminal involvement in international drug trafficking. In January 2024, President Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict” to “neutralize” more than 20 organized criminal groups following the escape of a gang leader from prison, multiple prison riots, and an armed attack on a television station. The Noboa government has also responded to the crisis with a series of states of emergency, which have been criticized by civil society groups for facilitating human rights abuses, including due process violations and extralegal state violence.

Ecuador’s next president will also have to address concerns about the country’s economy and other challenges. Indicators published by the Central Bank of Ecuador (BCE) in July 2024 indicated that the economy had entered a recession. Over the past year, the country has also faced an unprecedented electricity crisis driven by poorly maintained power plants and a drought that has depleted hydroelectric power generation capacity. In October 2024, the government announced that scheduled power cuts would reach 14 hours per day, a duration that has continued to fluctuate in the weeks since.

Elections occur regularly in Ecuador, and some key state institutions have displayed greater independence since the end of the Correa administration in 2017. The 2025 vote is the first presidential poll since the 2023 early elections, which were triggered by former president Guillermo Lasso Mendoza’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly amid impeachment proceedings against him. Lasso’s maneuver, while constitutional, underscored the political dysfunction that has hampered the country in recent years.

Ecuador has a score of 66 out of 100, with 100 representing the strongest defenses against digital election interference. Freedom House’s Election Vulnerability Index is based on a selection of key electoral indicators. The score reflects an environment where elections are credible, but where violence, institutional weaknesses, and deficiencies in the rule of law present obstacles to democratic consolidation.

Freedom House has identified the following as key digital interference issues to watch ahead of election day:

• Violence and threats: Physical violence and online threats against political candidates, elected officials, and journalists remain serious concerns in advance of the 2025 elections. Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio Valencia, who ran on an anticorruption platform and denounced ties between Ecuadorian politicians and drug traffickers, was murdered ahead of the last election. Digital platforms remain a major conduit for such violence and intimidation. In October 2024, then presidential candidate Jan Topic Feraud—who was disqualified from the election by the Electoral Dispute Court (TCE) in November—received anonymous death threats on WhatsApp warning him to drop out of the race. Political actors and journalists remain vulnerable to both online intimidation and potentially deadly violence ahead of the 2025 elections.
• Content removal: Journalists have been pressured to remove online content after receiving threats or intimidation from powerful actors. In December 2023, the Durán-based digital outlet El Ferrodiario deleted a social media post sharing an opinion piece after the author received an unspecified threat, though it did not remove the piece from its website. The article had encouraged local political candidates to develop specific policy proposals. Similar pressures levied against journalists who report on the 2025 election could limit the public’s access to information about candidates ahead of the vote.
• Cyberattacks: A cyberattack reportedly compromised the telematic voting system used by voters living abroad during the 2023 early elections, prompting the National Electoral Council (CNE) to readminister elections in three overseas National Assembly constituencies. While the circumstances of the attack were not publicly disclosed by the CNE, it was reportedly caused by a denial-of-service (DoS) attack targeting the CNE’s servers. Commentators have urged the CNE to ensure that voting processes are well administered and technically secure in 2025, noting that such incidents could undermine the public’s confidence in the vote.
• Information manipulation: False and misleading information, including content generated using artificial intelligence (AI), may distort the information space around the election. During the 2023 campaign, there is evidence that bot accounts were used to shape online discussions about Noboa and González. After a presidential debate, for instance, one analyst claimed that Noboa’s campaign allegedly used bots to amplify his talking points on social media, while bots allegedly linked to González’s campaign focused on discrediting Noboa. Such campaigns could make it more difficult for voters to discern accurate information about the election.

Ecuador is rated Partly Free in Freedom in the World 2024, with a score of 67 out of 100 with respect to its political rights and civil liberties, and Partly Free in Freedom on the Net 2024, with an internet freedom score of 63 out of 100. To learn more, please visit the Ecuador country reports in Freedom in the World and Freedom on the Net, and Freedom House’s Ecuador country portal.