QUITO, Ecuador, April 14, (AP):  Ecuadorian voters weary of crime reelected President Daniel Noboa, a conservative young millionaire with a divisive no-holds-barred crimefighting record, by a wide margin Sunday, but his opponent vowed to seek a recount over what she described as "grotesque” electoral fraud. Figures released by Ecuador’s National Electoral Council showed Noboa receiving 55.8% of the vote with more than 92% of ballots counted, while leftist lawyer Luisa González earned 44%. Council president Diana Atamaint said those results showed an "irreversible trend” in favor of Noboa.

The win gives Noboa four years to fulfill the promises he first made in 2023, when he stunned voters by winning a snap election and a 16-month presidency despite his limited political experience. "Ecuador is changing... and that path will mean our children will live better lives than we did,” Noboa told supporters during a brief speech in which he also criticized his opponent's fraud allegations. "I find it embarrassing that with an 11- or 12-point difference, they come out to question the will of the Ecuadorians,” Noboa added.

"Ecuadorians have already spoken, now we have to get to work.” Noboa, heir to a fortune built on the banana trade, is expected to continue applying some of his no-holds-barred crimefighting strategies that part of the electorate finds appealing but which have tested the limits of laws and norms of governing. González’s defeat marks the third consecutive time that the party of Rafael Correa, the country’s most influential president this century, failed to return to the presidency.

She told supporters that her campaign "does not recognize the results presented by the "(National Electoral Council),” arguing among other issues that pre-election polls showed her ahead of Noboa. The candidates advanced to Sunday’s contest after getting the most votes in February’s first-round election. Noboa led González by about 17,000 votes that time.

Voters were primarily worried about the violence that transformed the country, starting in 2021 - a spike in crime tied to the trafficking of cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru. Both candidates promised tough-on-crime policies, better equipment for law enforcement and international help to fight drug cartels and local criminal groups. "My vote is clear,” said Irene Valdez, a retiree who voted for Noboa. "I want to continue living in freedom.” College student Martín Constante had a different view.