Businessman Daniel Noboa is to become the youngest president in Ecuador’s history, at 35 years old.
Mr Noboa won Sunday’s election with 52.3% of the vote, ahead of Luisa González’s 47.7%. She conceded defeat and congratulated her rival.
The 35-year-old, of the National Democratic Action party, is the son of Álvaro Noboa, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency five times.
Mr Noboa will only have 17 months in office.
He will govern only to May 2025, due to the fact that the current election was triggered early when outgoing President Guillermo Lasso dissolved parliament amid an impeachment trial.
He can run again for the 2025-29 presidential term if he wishes to.
Ecuador has suffered an increase in gang violence in recent years and the presidential campaign was marred by the assassination in August of candidate Fernando Villavicencio. As a journalist he had campaigned against corruption.
Violent crime has also risen dramatically and Ecuador has become a hub for drugs gangs due to its location between Colombia and Peru, the top two producers of cocaine in the world.
Mr Noboa has suggested moving some of Ecuador’s most hardened criminals to prison ships off the Ecuadorean coast, in order to break up the prison gangs which have engaged in deadly warfare inside the country’s jails.
He also wants to boost security at Ecuador’s borders and ports to disrupt key drug-trafficking routes, suggesting installing scanners to ensure more shipments of cocaine are intercepted.
He has also tried to appeal to voters by promising to boost employment opportunities.
