After a snap election in Ecuador Aug. 21, left-populist Luisa González and millennial businessman Daniel Noboa are headed to a runoff in October. Both are seen as political successors: Frontrunner González is a protegé of exiled former president Rafael Correa. Second-placing Noboa is the son of banana magnate and five-time conservative presidential candidate Alvaro Noboa. Placing third was Christian Zurita—whose name was not on the ballot, but who replaced the assassinated anti-corruption candidate Fernando Villavicencio. (PRI, NPR, Al Jazeera)
Also on the ballot, and winning 60% support, was a measure to permanently bar oil drilling from YasunĂ National Park, a world biodiversity hotspot in the Ecuadoran Amazon. Parastatal PetroEcuador must now halt extraction at Bloc 43, which lies near the heart of the reserve. The bloc currently has 12 oil platforms and 230 wells producing some 57,000 barrels of oil per day. The measure was placed on the ballot thanks to a signature drive by activist group Yasunidos, which spent years fighting for the validity of collected signatures in Ecuador’s courts.
Likewise approved by a wide margin was a referendum on halting copper, gold and silver mining activity in the ChocĂł Andino de Pichincha, a biosphere reserve outside of Quito. (Mongabay, Al Jazeera, The Hill)
The election was called after President Guillermo Lasso, a conservative former banker, dissolved the National Assembly by decree in May, evidently to avoid being impeached over corruption in the state oil sector. The winner of the Oct. 15 runoff will govern only for the remainder of Lasso’s unfinished term, meaning less than two years. (AP)
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Ecuador failing to protect indigenous groups from oil pollution
Ecuador has failed to comply with key provisions of an Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) order to protect the Tagaeri and Taromenane indigenous peoples from oil facilities in YasunĂ National Park, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said March 16.
JosĂ© RodrĂguez OrĂşe, practitioner-in-residence at HRW, called for the immediate halt to drilling activities in the area, stating:
In March 2025, the IACHR delivered a landmark ruling that ordered Ecuador to take measures to protect indigenous groups’Â rights, including the immediate halt of oil operations in an area of YasunĂ National Park called Block 43. The court found that oil extraction from facilities near Indigenous territory generated large quantities of environmental pollution, increasing risks of exposure to harmful disease, displacement, food shortages, and conflicts over resources. (Jurist)