Two Latin American results

For a few years, the left was doing well in Latin America, with victories in the presidential elections of 2018 in Mexico, 2019 in Argentina, 2020 in Bolivia and 2021 in Peru and Chile, among others. Recently, however, that momentum seemed to have stalled, with an unexpectedly narrow victory last year in Brazil, and a bad defeat in this year’s election for the Chilean constitutional council.

Yesterday’s elections in Ecuador and Guatemala (see my previews here), however, have provided the left with some consolation, although perhaps less than might at first appear.

In Ecuador it was the first round of the presidential election. As expected, the left’s Luisa González took first place (official results here); with 89.2% of returns in she has 33.2% of the vote, more than 800,000 votes clear of second placegetter Daniel Noboa on 23.9%. Christian Zurita, standing in for the assassinated Fernando Villavicencio, is running third with 16.5%, followed by Jan Topić on 14.6%. Another four candidates are back in single figures (two of them below 1%).

Although González leads by nearly ten points, she is unlikely to have it all her own way in the second round (set for 15 October). At the last election, in 2021, leftist Andrés Arauz led by an even more impressive 13 points but still lost the runoff to Guillermo Lasso, 52.4% to 47.6%. Ecuadorians seem reluctant to return to the era of leftist president Rafael Correa, who led the country from 2007 to 2017 but now lives in exile in Belgium.

Noboa had not previously been regarded as one of the front-runners, but he should be well placed to rally support for the runoff, since – in contrast to the way the region has mostly played out lately – he represents the centre rather than the far right. His party was aligned with former president Lenín Moreno, who had been Correa’s chosen successor but shifted to the right when in office.

Meanwhile in Guatemala it was the second round, and a surprisingly decisive result. With counting virtually complete, the left’s Bernardo Arévalo has scored a landslide victory, winning with 60.9% against 39.1% for Sandra Torres, who had led him by more than five points in the first round eight weeks earlier (official results here; I’ve factored out the informals).

Neither Arévalo nor his party, Semilla (“seed”), is very far left; he describes himself as a social democrat and is on the record as a critic of the authoritarian left regimes in nearby Nicaragua and Venezuela. But for Guatemala, which has mostly been ruled by a narrow right-wing oligarchy, that’s still pretty left, so this is quite a big deal.

Torres had pitched her appeal to the right, warning that Arévalo would bring in same-sex marriage and other indignities, and her allies in the establishment had used a variety of dirty tricks to try to derail his campaign. In electoral terms they were strikingly unsuccessful; the test now is whether he will be allowed to take power.

UPDATE (7pm Monday, Ecuador time): Now with 97.4% counted, the figures have barely changed. González has come up slightly to 33.5%, now dead on ten points ahead of Noboa with 23.5%, and Zurita (actually still Villavicencio on the ballot paper) third on 16.5%.

FURTHER UPDATE (10.15pm Thursday, Ecuador time): Counting is now effectively complete in Ecuador (99.9%, with 23 returns outstanding) and González finishes on 33.6%, just over a million votes clear of Noboa on 23.4%; they will contest the runoff on 15 October. Zurita was third with 16.4%, followed by Jan Topić on 14.7%.

AP also has a good report on the Guatemala result.