Ecuador’s opposition faces escalating campaign of exclusion

On 22 October, police arrested Luisa González, who won more than 44 per cent of the vote in the 2025 presidential election. Her arrest followed the suspension of her party, Revolución Ciudadana (RC5), and the exclusion of her candidacy from the November elections.

Since 2017, leading figures of Revolución Ciudadana (RC5), the country's largest opposition force, have faced repeated prosecutions and disqualifications. Former President Rafael Correa was convicted in unusually rapid proceedings that raised concerns over due process and judicial impartiality. The conviction suspended his political rights and continues to prevent his participation in Ecuadorian political life.

Former Vice President Jorge Glas had been released from prison after serving five years for corruption convictions when, in April 2024, Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest him, hours after Mexico had granted him political asylum. Since then, Glas has been held in a maximum-security prison, where reports submitted to UN human rights experts describe prolonged isolation, severely restricted access to natural light and inadequate medical care. A UN Special Rapporteur warned that his detention conditions fell short of international standards and recalled that prolonged solitary confinement constitutes torture. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also raised grave concerns about the deterioration of his physical and mental health.

In February, Aquiles Álvarez, mayor of Guayaquil and one of the country's leading opposition figures, was arrested in an investigation into alleged money laundering and tax fraud, which he rejected as unfounded. Nine months later, he remains imprisoned without having faced trial in that case. He has since received convictions in two separate proceedings, neither of which is yet final, while his detention conditions and hospitalisations have raised further concerns.

Vicko Villacís, mayor of Esmeraldas and an RC5-backed candidate for re-election, was also detained on money laundering allegations and remains imprisoned. Meanwhile, Cristian Zamora, mayor of Cuenca, was barred from seeking re-election after the Electoral Disputes Tribunal (TCE) upheld a six-month suspension of his political rights for gender-based political violence. Zamora disputes the ruling and alleges an electoral motive.

On 6 March, the Electoral Disputes Tribunal (TCE), at the request of the Attorney General's Office, suspended RC5 for nine months, excluding the country's largest opposition force from crucial stages of the electoral process. When RC5 sought to contest the elections through another party, AMIGO, the TCE suspended that organisation too, on 17 July — a decision previously denounced by this Observatory.

Quito's mayor, Pabel Muñoz, was forced to seek a third electoral vehicle for his re-election campaign after the suspensions of RC5 and AMIGO. He eventually registered through an alliance of three other parties. Separate proceedings alleging gender-based political violence, which threatened his candidacy, were unanimously dismissed by the TCE.

Luisa González also sought to contest the Manabí Prefecture through Pachakutik after the suspensions of RC5 and AMIGO. The governing ADN party challenged her candidacy, arguing that she failed to meet Pachakutik's membership requirements and that its rules did not permit invited candidates. On 12 September, the TCE unanimously upheld her exclusion, barring one of Ecuador's leading opposition figures from the 29 November elections.

On 28 August, the Trump administration deported José Serrano, a former minister under Correa, despite judicial protection in the United States over his risk of torture upon return. Serrano was transferred to a maximum-security prison in Ecuador, where he faces proceedings relating to the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Noboa posted photographs of Serrano in handcuffs, warning Correa: "You're next." Hours later, he posted another image of Serrano with his head shaved and wearing a prison uniform, captioned simply: "Done".

On 21 October, police raided offices of Quito's municipal government as part of an investigation into alleged irregularities in contracts awarded in 2024. Mayor Pabel Muñoz's administration called for an impartial investigation and rejected any suggestion that the raids established wrongdoing. The operation came just weeks before Muñoz was due to contest re-election.

The following day, 22 October, police arrested Luisa González at her home in an early-morning operation as part of the Laberinto investigation into alleged money laundering connected to the 2023 presidential campaign. The following day, a judge ordered her pretrial detention. Her imprisonment came less than six weeks after she was definitively barred from contesting the Manabí Prefecture. The same day, authorities also ordered the detention of Andrés Arauz, RC5's 2021 presidential candidate, to bring him before a court for the formal presentation of charges in the Laberinto case.

With the country's largest opposition party suspended, elected mayors imprisoned and leading candidates excluded or detained, Ecuadorians are being deprived of political alternatives ahead of the 29 November local elections. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has warned that the suspension of RC5 and AMIGO, proceedings against other parties and changes to the electoral calendar risk the "arbitrary exclusion of political options" and the erosion of electoral pluralism. It has called for legal challenges to be resolved before their consequences become irreversible. The OAS Secretary General endorsed the Commission's warning, while the UN has separately raised concerns over intimidation of the judiciary and threats to the Constitutional Court's independence.

The Progressive International Observatory will be on the ground in Ecuador for the 29 November elections. It calls on international observation missions to examine the entire electoral cycle — including the suspension of political organisations, the exclusion of candidates, access to effective legal remedies, and the impact of criminal proceedings on political participation — rather than the conduct of voting alone.

The Observatory calls on Ecuadorian authorities to guarantee political rights, uphold due process and judicial independence, and ensure that all political forces can compete on equal terms. Allegations of criminal wrongdoing must be investigated impartially, with full respect for the presumption of innocence. The criminal justice system must never become an instrument of political persecution.

Ecuador’s future must be decided by its people.