A 35-year-old man Daniel Naboa, on Sunday, October 15, emerged the youngest president ever elected in Ecuador.
He won 90 percent of the votes after Ecuadorians went to the polls, and moments after, his socialist rival Luisa Gonzalez conceded defeat and offered her profound congratulations to him.
The Ecuadorians voting process was on for 10 hours, on Sunday with no reports of violence in a country gripped by drug war and a rash of political assassinations that lead to the bid of a popular candidate being cut off.
Meanwhile, 100,000 police and soldiers were deployed to various areas to keep the process safe, while Noboa and Gonzalez both cast their votes in bulletproof vests weeks after a rival was murdered.
The main concerns of Ecuadorians, according to recent polls, are centered around crime and violence in a country where the murder rate quadrupled in the four years, 2022.
The country which has been a peaceful haven between major cocaine exporters, Colombia and Peru, has seen violence explode in recent years as gangs with links to Mexican and Colombian cartels battle for control.
The conflict has seen at least 460 inmates massacred in prisons since February 2021, many beheaded or burned alive in mass riots.
The bloodbath has spilled into the streets, with gangs hanging headless corpses from city bridges and detonating car bombs outside police stations in a show of force.
In August, this violence claimed the life of an anti-graft and anti-cartel journalist and presidential candidate mowed down in a barrage of submachine-gun fire after a campaign speech.
However, Noboa was elected into office for only 16 months, completing the term of incumbent Guillermo Lasso, who called a snap vote to avoid possible impeachment for alleged embezzlement.
While in office, he promised a progressive move for everyone and vowed to prioritize job creation.
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