Surprises in Ecuador's presidential elections: preliminary results show that Daniel Noboa and Luisa González go to second round

This Sunday, Ecuadorians went to the polls to choose a new president, vice president and more than a hundred legislators. The process had a strong security presence to mitigate the wave of violence the country suffered throughout the campaign.

Voters turned out in historically high numbers of more than 82%, and although everything seemed to proceed normally, the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Ecuador reported that the electronic voting platform suffered cyber attacks.

"According to preliminary reports, the telematic voting platform suffered cyber attacks that affected the fluidity to access the vote," said the president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint, clarifying that all the votes were entered and counted correctly. According to the report, the attacks originated from seven countries: Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China.

IACHR granted precautionary measures for a candidate

After the murder of Fernando Villavicencio, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) considered it necessary to grant precautionary measures to his successor, presidential candidate Christian Zurita, and his entire campaign team.

"The request (for precautionary measures) refers to an attack on the headquarters of the campaign, the presence of criminals on motorcycles in front of one of the campaign premises, selective and mysterious robberies, threatening messages, etc." the IACHR reported.

Daniel Noboa and Luisa González for the second round

With a little more than 30% of the ballots counted, Luisa González, the Correísmo candidate, is the one who has obtained the most votes (33.35%). However, the candidate who has been the most surprising is Daniel Noboa, as he is currently in second place, although in the polls he wasn't even among the top four favorites. Both politicians could face off in a runoff election.

Otto Sonnenholzner concedes defeat

Although there are still votes to be counted, the former vice president of Ecuador, Otto Sonnenholzner, has already publicly admitted his defeat after achieving just over 6% of the votes so far.

"We will learn from our mistakes, we will strengthen our virtues and we will always continue to be concerned about contributing and working so that our country finds a path of peace," he said.