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Daniel Noboa, the 35-year-old heir to a banana empire<\/a>, won Ecuador\u2019s presidential election on Sunday, in a high-stakes campaign driven by an electorate frustrated with the country\u2019s surging violence and ailing economy.<\/p>\n The center-right political outsider defeated Luisa Gonz\u00e1lez, a leftist handpicked by former President Rafael Correa who ran on a pledge of returning to a time of prosperity and low homicide rates under the Correa government.<\/p>\n The vote signaled a desire for change in a nation of more than 17 million on South America\u2019s western coast that has seen a wave of violence from international criminal groups and local gangs that have turned Ecuador into a key player in the global drug trade and sent tens of thousands of Ecuadoreans fleeing to the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n Like much of the rest of Latin America, Ecuador was dealt a major financial blow by the coronavirus pandemic, and many workers struggle to make enough money to provide for their families. Only 34 percent of Ecuadoreans have adequate employment, according to government data.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Noboa received 52.29 percent of the vote compared with Ms. Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s 47.71 percent, with more than 93 percent of votes counted on Sunday evening, according to official figures.<\/p>\n Ms. Gonz\u00e1lez conceded defeat in a speech and thanked her supporters.<\/p>\n \u201cTo those who did not vote for us, also our congratulations, because the candidate they chose has won and as Ecuadoreans we also embrace them,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd of course to the candidate, now President-elect Daniel Noboa, our deepest congratulations because it is democracy. We have never called to set fire to a city nor have we ever gone out shouting fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n Ecuador was once a peaceful nation compared with its neighbors, particularly Colombia, which for decades was torn by violence among armed guerrilla units, paramilitary groups and drug cartels.<\/p>\n That all changed in recent years<\/a> as Colombia forged a peace deal with the country\u2019s largest leftist guerrilla group, and Ecuador became dominated by an increasingly powerful narco-trafficking industry that includes Mexican cartels and Albanian gangs. Through its ports on the Pacific Coast, Ecuador has become a major transshipment point<\/a> for cocaine that is smuggled to Europe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n News reports regularly feature beheadings, car bombings, police assassinations, young men hanging from bridges and children gunned down outside their homes or schools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When Mr. Noboa is sworn in, he will hold office until May 2025. During that time, he will be forced to reckon with the international groups that have joined forces with prison-based gangs in a brutal competition for the lucrative drug industry.<\/p>\n And with little governing experience and a divided legislature, analysts say this will be a challenge.<\/p>\n It will most likely take him a long time to form a coalition government, and it will probably be ideologically incoherent and unpredictable, said Will Freeman, a fellow in Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. research institute.<\/p>\n Mr. Noboa has tried to straddle the left-right divide on the campaign trail, yet his choice of running mate, Ver\u00f3nica Abad, puzzled many analysts. Ms. Abad is a right-wing business coach who has spoken out against abortion, feminism and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and has expressed support for Donald J. Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil\u2019s former far-right president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf that\u2019s any indication,\u201d Mr. Freeman said, \u201cI think his government is going to be a real hodgepodge.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Noboa has vowed to rein in the violence, though neither he nor Ms. Gonz\u00e1lez made security a central part of their campaigns.<\/p>\n Both candidates talked about providing more money for the police and deploying the military to secure ports used to smuggle drugs out of the country and prisons, which are controlled by violent gangs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Noboa has proposed the use of technology, like drones and satellite tracking systems, to stem drug trafficking, and has suggested building prison boats to isolate the most violent inmates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But analysts say he has not done enough to prioritize combating the crime that has destabilized Ecuador and turned it into one of Latin America\u2019s most violent countries.<\/p>\n The departing president, Guillermo Lasso, called for early elections<\/a> in May as he faced impeachment proceedings against him stemming from accusations of embezzlement. Mr. Lasso had also grown increasingly unpopular with voters angry over the government\u2019s inability to address the spiraling violence.<\/p>\n The August assassination<\/a> of a presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, was a traumatic jolt for a nation that went to the polls during what has been perhaps the most violent electoral season in its history.<\/p>\n