Elections

The former New Jersey governor has relentlessly taunted Donald Trump, hoping for a dramatic onstage confrontation. It appears he is not going to get what he wants.After months of relentless taunting and hyping a debate clash with former President Donald J. Trump, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey turned to chiding.“If you qualify for the stage, which Trump has, not showing up is completely disrespectful to the Republican Party, who made you their nominee twice, and to the Republican voters, whose support you’re asking for again,” Mr. Christie told reporters on Friday outside the famed Versailles Cuban restaurant in Miami.Mr. Christie built his entire presidential candidacy toward a marquee confrontation with Mr. Trump, relentlessly goading him and needling him as a coward in a clear effort to tempt the quick-to-anger former president into showing up to the debate on Wednesday in Milwaukee.It appears Mr. Trump will not take the bait, other than swiping back at Mr. Christie on social media and in speeches. Last week, he signaled that he planned to skip the first Republican debate and instead sit for an interview with Tucker Carlson that will be broadcast online at the same time.Mr. Trump’s absence could lead to an anticlimactic scene at the debate, with Mr. Christie forced to launch unrequited broadsides through the airwaves without the fireworks of a Trump response.Mr. Christie and his campaign say there’s upside for him if Mr. Trump does not appear onstage. John Tully for The New York Times“They have been taunting each other back and forth on Twitter and campaign town halls, so it robs Christie of a big moment that he is looking for if Trump doesn’t show up onstage,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and veteran of two presidential campaigns. “You can use the debate to get the anti-Trump message out that he’s pushing, but you’re going to lack that viral moment if the two of them aren’t looking at each other face to face.”Yet Mr. Christie and his team also see an opportunity if the pugnacious and unpredictable former president is not onstage. Mr. Christie, a confident debater and the only Trump critic in the Republican field with any kind of foothold, could shine in the vacuum, using candidates who have been far more deferential to Mr. Trump as a stand-in for him.Mr. Christie tried out that kind of approach at a town hall event in Miami on Friday, chastising Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida over his super PAC’s disclosure of debate strategy memos, which called for him to defend Mr. Trump against Mr. Christie’s attacks onstage.If Mr. DeSantis ends up doing so, Mr. Christie said he had one piece of advice: “Get the hell out of the race.”In an interview this month during his surprise visit to Ukraine, Mr. Christie said he was not particularly bothered by the prospect of a debate without Mr. Trump.“It doesn’t change my perspective or my tactical approach,” he said. “Because if he’s not there, it just means two things. One, he’s afraid to be on the same debate stage and defend his record. And two, you know, this is a guy who, by not showing up, just gives me more time. So it’s OK. Either way, I win.”Mr. Christie and his advisers see the debate as a forum built to the former governor’s strengths. Comfortable in unscripted moments in front of cameras, Mr. Christie has a confrontational style, hewed from years in the trenches of New Jersey politics, that has served him well in past debates, and he has over a decade of experience participating in them through two campaigns for governor and his 2016 run for president.To prepare for Wednesday, he has been huddling with close advisers to go over topics at the heart of the campaign and anticipate different scenarios that may arise as he navigates the chaos of an eight-lectern stage. He has been heavily focused on the debate, bringing it up in casual conversations with both advisers and political acquaintances as he takes the temperature of the race.At the same time, his preparations have a bare-bones nature. There are no mock debates, no fake stages with podiums, no advisers suiting up for the roles of Mr. Trump or Mr. DeSantis.Mr. Christie and his advisers see the debate as a forum built to the former governor’s strengths. David Degner for The New York TimesIn part, he is informed by his experience during the 2016 presidential debates, when he notably avoided attacking Mr. Trump. (He has said on the campaign trail that he was the only candidate to go speak to Mr. Trump during commercial breaks.) Mr. Christie was quick to pounce on his other rivals, including a now-famous exchange with Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.“There it is,” Mr. Christie said, interrupting Mr. Rubio, who had pivoted to a line about former President Barack Obama during an exchange with Mr. Christie. “The memorized 25-second speech. There it is, everybody.”That dismissive riposte sent the Rubio campaign spiraling, with headlines concluding that Mr. Christie had exposed Mr. Rubio as a robotic candidate reliant on consultants and that the Florida senator had “choked.” After polling near second or third place in New Hampshire before the debate, Mr. Rubio finished fifth in the state’s primary race less than a week later.Built into the question of how Mr. Christie treats this week’s debate is just how much Republican voters want to see someone caustically rip into Mr. Trump, whether he is onstage or not.Despite his mounting legal problems, Mr. Trump remains exceptionally popular within the party. And Mr. Christie’s constant provocations, beyond endearing the former governor to some moderate Republicans, have also turned him into something of a #Resistance hero among liberals who will not be voting in a G.O.P. primary.Waiting for a flight at Kennedy International Airport in New York early this month, Mr. Christie was approached for a photo by a fellow traveler, Jessica Rutherford, who told him she appreciated his broadsides against Mr. Trump and hoped he would continue.“You’re like Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope!” she told him.But Ms. Rutherford, an intellectual property lawyer from Wilton, Conn., and a Democrat, conceded that she was unlikely to vote for Mr. Christie in November 2024 if he were to win the Republican primary.Undaunted, Mr. Christie made his pitch. “I’ll be awake in meetings with foreign leaders,” he offered, in a jab at President Biden’s age.“Reagan wasn’t awake in meetings with foreign leaders,” Ms. Rutherford shot back.“I bet you didn’t vote for him, either,” Mr. Christie replied.Patricia Mazzei More

Outsiders overperformed, underscoring the volatility of Latin American politics. Candidates calling to emulate El Salvador’s crackdown on crime did not do well.Ecuador and Guatemala held elections on Sunday that shed light on crucial trends throughout Latin America, including anticorruption drives, the growing importance of young voters and calls to emulate El Salvador’s crackdown on crime.In Ecuador, where the assassination this month of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio cast a pall over campaigning, an establishment leftist, Luisa González, will head into a runoff against Daniel Noboa, the scion of a well-heeled family known for its banana empire.And in Guatemala, the progressive anti-graft crusader Bernardo Arévalo won in a landslide over a former first lady, Sandra Torres, dealing a blow to the country’s conservative political establishment.As concerns simmer over the erosion of the rule of law and the expanding sway of drug gangs in different parts of Latin America, the voting was watched closely for signs of what the outcomes could mean.Here are key takeaways.President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has cracked down on gang violence, using mass arrests that swept up thousands of innocent people. Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesCrime wasn’t the only issue on voters’ minds.Ecuador and Guatemala each face an array of different challenges, and while it is hard to overstate the difficulty of governing effectively in both countries, new leaders will grapple with getting organized crime under control and creating economic opportunities to keep their citizens at home instead of emigrating.The star of the moment in Latin America’s political scene is El Salvador’s conservative populist president, Nayib Bukele, for his success in using hard-line tactics to quell gang violence, including mass arrests that swept up thousands of innocent people and the erosion of civil liberties. But expectations that enthusiasts for the Bukele gospel on crime would sail to victory fizzled in Ecuador and Guatemala.“It is notable that in neither case did unabashed admirers of Nayib Bukele’s hard-line policies against criminal gangs in El Salvador fare well,” said Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based research organization.Despite the shock over the assassination of Mr. Villavicencio, explicitly anti-crime candidates in Ecuador split their share of the votes. Jan Topic, who aligned himself closely with Mr. Bukele, fared poorly despite climbing in the polls after the assassination.“He did run a single-issue campaign that was very much focused around security,” Risa Grais-Targow, the Latin America director for Eurasia Group, said of Mr. Topic. “But voters have other concerns, including on the economy.”Similarly, in Guatemala — where fears were growing of a slide toward authoritarian rule — Ms. Torres’s pledge to put in place Bukele-style policies failed to gain much traction. Instead, the former first lady was put on the defensive by her rival because she had spent time under house arrest in connection to charges of illicit campaign financing.Also influencing the outcome: moves by Guatemala’s electoral authority to simply disqualify candidates who were viewed as threatening the established order.One of the candidates pushed out of the race ahead of the first round in June was Carlos Pineda, an outsider seeking to replicate Mr. Bukele’s crackdown on crime. When Mr. Pineda and others were disqualified, that provided an opening for Mr. Arévalo, another outsider, even though his proposals to fight crime are more nuanced.Guatemalan candidates tried to capitalize on the support of young people.Daniele Volpe for The New York TimesYoung voters shape elections.To a notable degree, the electoral outcomes in Ecuador and Guatemala hinged on the choices of young voters. In Ecuador, Mr. Noboa, 35, a businessman and newcomer to politics, was polling in the doldrums just a few weeks ago.But seizing on youth support while casting himself as an outsider, Mr. Noboa unexpectedly surged into the runoff with about 24 percent of the vote. (Name recognition may also have helped; his father, Álvaro Noboa, one of Ecuador’s richest men, ran unsuccessfully for president five times.)In Guatemala, Central America’s most populous country, Mr. Arévalo, 64, also capitalized on the support of young people, especially in cities, who were drawn to his calls to end the political persecution of human rights activists, environmentalists, journalists, prosecutors and judges.Mr. Arévalo also offered a more moderate stance on social issues. While saying he would not seek to legalize abortion or gay marriage, he made it clear that his government would not permit discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation.That position, which is somewhat novel in Guatemala, stood in sharp contrast to that of Ms. Torres, who drafted an evangelical pastor as her running mate and used an anti-gay slur on the campaign trail to refer to Mr. Arévalo’s supporters.Luisa González will head into a runoff against Daniel Noboa in Ecuador.Johanna Alarcón for The New York TimesThe left is going in different directions.Guatemala and Ecuador offered sharply contrasting visions for the left in Latin America.Indeed, within Guatemala’s traditionally conservative political landscape, Mr. Arévalo, who criticizes leftist governments like Nicaragua’s, is often described as a progressive. In that sense, he is more like Gabriel Boric, Chile’s moderate young president, than firebrands elsewhere in the region.Mr. Arévalo’s party, Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement), which coalesced after anticorruption protests in 2015, is also unlike any other party in Guatemala in recent decades. Semilla gained attention for running a principled and austere campaign, making its funding sources clear, in contrast to the opaque financing prevailing in other parties. Another source of inspiration for Semilla is Uruguay’s Frente Amplio (Broad Front), a moderate, democratic left-of-center party.“Arévalo is a democrat through and through,” said Will Freeman, a fellow in Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.Ms. González, by contrast, hails from a different part of the Latin American left, characterized in Ecuador’s case by testing democratic checks and balances, Mr. Freeman said. She is a supporter of Rafael Correa, a former Ecuadorean president who remains a dominant force in the country’s politics despite being out of power for six years.Mr. Correa, who lives in Belgium after fleeing an eight-year prison sentence for campaign-finance violations, retains a strong base that oscillates between 20 percent and 30 percent of the electorate.That support is largely a result of the “nostalgia for that moment of well-being that existed during the Correa era,” said Caroline Ávila, a political analyst in Ecuador.Mr. Arévalo got more votes than any other candidate in Guatemala since democracy was restored in the country in 1985.Daniele Volpe for The New York TimesUnpredictability underlined the races.The races in both Ecuador and Guatemala highlighted a wider regional trend: the uncertainty and volatility of Latin America’s politics.Polls in both countries failed to capture crucial developments. In Ecuador, where Mr. Topic was seen capitalizing on the aftermath of the Villavicencio assassination, Mr. Noboa swooped in to make it to the runoff.And in Guatemala, Mr. Arévalo, a professorial candidate who sometimes reads his speeches and lacks the oratory skills of his rivals, was viewed as nonthreatening by the establishment — until he squeaked into the runoff.Now, with his landslide win, Mr. Arévalo got more votes than any other candidate since democracy was restored in Guatemala in 1985.That’s a scenario that even many within Mr. Arévalo’s own party did not see coming.Simon Romero More

Defense lawyers had said they needed years to wade through 11 million pages of evidence, but the Justice Department, which is seeking to go to trial in January, said they were exaggerating the burden.Federal prosecutors pushed back on Monday against former President Donald J. Trump’s request to postpone his election interference trial in Washington until well into 2026, asserting that his main reason for the delay — the amount of evidence his lawyers have to sort through — was vastly overstated.Mr. Trump’s lawyers, in an extremely aggressive move last week, asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, to put the trial off until at least April 2026. That schedule would call for a jury to be seated nearly a year and a half after the 2024 election and almost three years after the charges against Mr. Trump were originally filed.The lawyers said they needed so much time because the amount of discovery evidence they expect to receive from the government was enormous — as much as 8.5 terabytes of materials, they told Judge Chutkan, totaling over 11.5 million pages.As part of their filing to the judge, the lawyers included a graph that purported to show how a stack of 11.5 million pages would result in a “tower of paper stretching nearly 5,000 feet into the sky.” That, the lawyers pointed out, was “taller than the Washington Monument, stacked on top of itself eight times, with nearly a million pages to spare.”Responding to these claims in court papers on Monday, Molly Gaston, one of the prosecutors in the case, told Judge Chutkan that Mr. Trump’s characterization of the discovery evidence “overstates the amount of new and nonduplicative” material his lawyers will get and “exaggerates the challenge of reviewing it effectively.”Ms. Gaston said that Mr. Trump should already be familiar with much of the materials, noting that about three million pages came from unnamed “entities associated with” him. Hundreds of thousands of other pages, she added, have been publicly available for some time — among them, “the defendant’s tweets, Truth Social posts, campaign statements and court papers involving challenges to the 2020 election by the defendant or his allies.”Ms. Gaston also said that about one million pages of discovery came from the House select committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That trove of evidence included hundreds of transcripts of interviews or depositions, a majority of which, she asserted, “are already public in redacted form.”Moreover, Ms. Gaston said, the government turned over a large trove of materials — including more than three million pages of documents from the Secret Service — that “should not require substantial time or attention from the defense team.”All of the material, she added, was given to Mr. Trump’s lawyers in a way that the defense could review quickly and easily “through targeted keyword searches and electronic sorting.”Mr. Trump’s proposed trial date, Ms. Gaston wrote, “rests on the faulty assertion that it is necessary for a lawyer to conduct a page-by-page review of discovery for a defendant to receive a fair trial.”“But the defendant can, should and apparently will adopt the benefits of electronic review to reduce the volume of material needed to be searched and manually reviewed,” she said.Mr. Trump has made no secret in private conversations with his aides that he is looking to win the next election as a way to try to solve his array of legal problems. To that end, he has often sought to slow down prosecutors in all four of the criminal cases he is facing.Indeed, if the former president, and the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, can push his two federal trials — in Washington and Florida — until after the election and prevail, he could seek to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matter altogether.Mr. Trump will not be able to pardon himself if he is ultimately convicted in Manhattan, where he faces state charges related to hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election. That is also true in Fulton County, Ga., where he stands accused with 18 co-defendants of tampering with the results of the election in that state.Prosecutors in the office of the Justice Department’s special counsel, Jack Smith, filed their own election interference case against Mr. Trump this month in Federal District Court in Washington. That indictment accused Mr. Trump and six unidentified co-conspirators of three overlapping plots to defraud the United States, to disrupt the final certification of the election and to deprive people of their rights to have their votes counted.Mr. Smith’s team has asked Judge Chutkan to set their case for trial in January. If that schedule holds — which is not a certainty — the federal election interference case would be the first to go before a jury.Judge Chutkan is expected to consider — and perhaps issue a ruling — on the question of a trial date when the two sides meet for a hearing in her courtroom on Aug. 28.The Manhattan case is set to go to trial in late March while Mr. Trump’s other federal case — one in which he stands accused of illegally retaining dozens of classified documents after leaving office — is scheduled to go to trial in Fort Pierce, Fla., in May.Last week, Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., said she hoped to take Mr. Trump to trial in her case as early as March 4. More

More from our inbox:Living Well, and Pursuing One’s Passion, With Parkinson’sThe ‘Absurd Contradictions’ of the Migrant SystemA Civilized Argument A Debate QuestionCecilia CarlstedtTo the Editor: Re “Inside a Dementia Unit in a Federal Prison” (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 13):Katie Engelhart vividly describes the absurdity and cruelty of incarcerating frail elders with debilitating dementia. It would be a mistake, though, to conclude simply that expanding compassionate release is the answer. Certainly, that’s warranted, but policymakers should be proactive, not just reactive.As a former parole commissioner, I know that dementia is just the tip of the iceberg of the problem of mass aging behind bars.Countless people (not just men) effectively face a slow death penalty behind bars because of extreme sentences or repeated denials of parole release despite these individuals’ complete transformations. Far from being helpless, many are violence interrupters, mentors, scholars and artists, including people previously convicted of causing serious harm. They have changed.Enacting elder parole bills, which do not guarantee release based on age but rather allow older adults to be individually considered for release by a parole board, can help resolve the crisis of aging behind bars, save substantial money, and return people to the community to repair the harm they long ago caused — before they are on death’s doorstep.Carol ShapiroNew YorkTo the Editor:Dementia units in prisons should primarily serve as a conduit to helping achieve compassionate release. As physicians volunteering with the Medical Justice Alliance, we review the medical care of numerous patients with dementia who are undiagnosed and untreated in the prison system. Patients wake up unsure why they are in prison, hoping that President Nixon might pardon them.We must consider the high cost of normalizing the imprisonment of elderly patients with dementia. Financially, developing “dementia-friendly” prison units incurs significant costs; that money could instead be used to improve community resources such as nursing facilities. Ethically, we must grapple with punishing people who do not pose a threat to others and are unable to understand why they are being punished.Compassionate release laws at the state and federal levels should make dementia an explicit criterion for early release. Facilities should also screen older patients for dementia on a regular basis and develop protocols for requesting compassionate release and expediting placement in memory care facilities. The U.S. prison population is aging and change is urgently needed.Caitlin FarrellNicole MusheroWilliam WeberTo the Editor:As a person who has served three federal prison terms for antiwar protests for a total of almost three years, I found myself shaking my head that the Federal Bureau of Prisons maintains Federal Medical Center Devens to hold men with dementia.The essay noted that most of the men in the dementia unit have no memories of their crimes or why they are incarcerated, yet few are deemed eligible for compassionate release. The United States incarcerates nearly two million people in our thousands of jails and prisons. The U.S. prison system is primitive, lacks redemption and only metes out punishment. The term rehabilitation is simply not part of this cruel system.In my time in more than a half dozen federal prisons, I never met a man I would not have to my home as a dinner guest. Our jails and prisons are filled mostly with people convicted of nonviolent crimes. Many — perhaps the majority — of incarcerated people are poor, mentally ill or substance abusers. Most need medical treatment, not incarceration.I agree with F.M.C. Devens’s clinical director, Dr. Patricia Ruze, who thinks it would be “totally appropriate” to release the whole unit on compassionate grounds and relocate the men to community nursing homes.I’d go one step further: Let’s release all nonviolent people from prison with appropriate community support to help them prosper and avoid recidivism, as well as offer programs of human uplift to the remaining prisoners using the money we save by closing the prisons we will no longer need.Patrick O’NeillGarner, N.C.Living Well, and Pursuing One’s Passion, With Parkinson’sThe pianist Nicolas Hodges has continued to perform and record — with alterations and tough decisions — after receiving a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.Roderick Aichinger for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Pianist Adapts His Life to Parkinson’s” (Arts & Leisure, Aug. 13):Thank you for demonstrating how the pianist Nicolas Hodges is adapting to life with Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Hodges is testament to the fact that it is possible to continue to live well with Parkinson’s, and the article highlights two key ways to manage symptoms: consistently taking medications (dopamine) and reducing commitments or stress. Exercise and physical activity are also critical to managing symptoms.Recent research published by the Parkinson’s Foundation shows that the number of people in the U.S. diagnosed with Parkinson’s annually has increased by 50 percent, from approximately 60,000 to 90,000. This means that every six minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with the disease and may encounter similar challenges to those faced by Mr. Hodges.Further funding to support research and drug development are needed in order to find a cure, and the Parkinson’s Foundation and other organizations work tirelessly to advance this.In the meantime, we applaud Mr. Hodges for speaking about his experience with the disease and continuing to pursue his passion. Play on, Mr. Hodges.John L. LehrNew YorkThe writer is president and C.E.O. of the Parkinson’s Foundation.The ‘Absurd Contradictions’ of the Migrant SystemTo the Editor: We have millions of square feet of office space no longer being used and tens of thousands of homeless people and displaced immigrants needing shelter. Many employers cannot fill open jobs while the talents and proven determination of immigrants sit untapped in detention.We can strengthen our economy and confirm our commitment to human dignity and decency by correcting these absurd contradictions.It would be far more cost-effective to use the migrant detention system funds to create a system where people can be quickly helped and trained to be productive contributors to society instead of expensive drains on us all.Even if common decency is not a motivation, pure selfish economic need dictates that we end the waste and do the right thing.Michael E. MakoverGreat Neck, N.Y.A Civilized Argument Christopher Smith for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Imagining the Face-Off in Trump’s Jan. 6 Case,” by David French (column, Aug. 12):I started feeling odd as I read Mr. French’s column. It was so quiet! Two measured, rational voices speaking through the ink, each backing up their arguments with researchable references and free of bitter, ad hominem jabs. A few bits of pique and tooth grinding to humanize both the defense and the prosecution, but all for the sake of clarifying a complex position.How civilized! How rare! It’s a shame that the essay was the voice of one man working his careful way through a thicket of legal complexity and not a real-life exchange of ideas in search of a mutually arrived at truth.Leslie BellDavenport, IowaA Debate QuestionTo the Editor: At the Republican debate I would like to see the moderator ask each of the participants if as president they would pardon Donald Trump if he is convicted of federal crimes.Walter RonaghanHarrison, N.Y. More

Luisa González and Daniel Noboa were poised to be the top candidates of Sunday’s election in a country where declining security has been the leading issue for most voters.An establishment leftist and a newcomer businessman appeared to capture the top two spots in Ecuador’s presidential election on Sunday in a campaign cycle that has centered on voters’ frustration with the country’s soaring gang and drug cartel violence.Luisa González, who was backed by a former socialist president, and the political outsider Daniel Noboa received the highest percentage of ballots with 84 percent of the vote counted. They will compete in a runoff election on Oct. 15.The economy and security are likely to be the leading issues going into the runoff, as local prison and street gangs, along with foreign drug mafias, have unleashed a wave of violence unlike anything in the country’s recent history, sending homicide rates to record levels and hurting the vital tourism industry.Concerns over the declining security were amplified earlier this month when the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated on the campaign trail.Ms. González led the election, garnering 33 percent of the vote, with 84 percent counted, followed by Mr. Noboa, the unexpected second-place winner with 24 percent. Just a few weeks ago, Mr. Noboa was polling in single digits.Full official results were expected later on Sunday night.Ecuador also voted on Sunday to halt drilling in one of the most biodiverse corners of the Amazon in a victory for a decade-long fight by environmental activists to get the binding referendum in front of voters.Sunday’s first-round vote followed President Guillermo Lasso’s call for snap elections in May amid impeachment proceedings against him over accusations of embezzlement, as well as rising voter dissatisfaction over the nation’s security crisis.Ecuador, a country of 18 million, was once a tranquil haven compared with its neighbor Colombia, which for decades was ravaged by violence by armed guerrilla and paramilitary groups and drug cartels. As that changed in the past few years after Colombia forged a peace deal, the narco-trafficking industry grew increasingly powerful in Ecuador.Ms. González led the election, garnering 33 percent of the vote in early counting.Karen Toro/ReutersAmid news reports regularly featuring beheadings, car bombs, police assassinations, young men hanging from bridges and children gunned down outside their homes and schools, Ecuadoreans are hoping for new leadership that can restore the peaceful existence they once took for granted.The González-Noboa matchup means that “there’s still a strong, loyal base for Correísmo that’s enough to get González into the runoff,” said Risa Grais-Targow, the Latin America director for Eurasia Group, referring to the leftist movement of former President Rafael Correa, who governed from 2007 to 2017.But, she said, “there’s a large share of the population that really wants something completely different — they want a new face.”The surprise of the night was the second-place victory for Mr. Noboa, who was recently polling toward the bottom of the pool of eight candidates.“The youth opted for the Daniel Noboa option,” said Mr. Noboa in a news conference Sunday night. “It would not be the first time that a new proposal would turn around the electoral establishment,” he added, referring to himself.The 35-year-old comes from one of the richest families in Latin America, known to most Ecuadoreans for its banana empire. His father ran for president five times, unsuccessfully, but the younger Noboa’s political career goes back only to 2021, when he was elected to Ecuador’s Congress.“He has a voting base that is familiar with the Noboa brand, with the Noboa name, and that now has been very successfully energized, refreshed with a new face,” said Caroline Ávila, an Ecuadorean political analyst. “He captures the attention of young people, the main mass of undecided voters. They are the ones who are putting him in the second round.”Mr. Noboa’s campaign seemed to take off only a week ago, when he impressed many Ecuadoreans with his debate performance.“He stands out in the debate,” Ms. Ávila said. “He speaks well, he speaks fluently, without complicating himself too much, without fighting. And it has generated a lot of interest in these post-debate weeks.”As a legislator and member of the National Democratic Action Movement, Mr. Noboa supported bills to attract international investment and cut taxes, said Grace Jaramillo, an Ecuadorean professor of political science at the University of British Columbia.His policy proposals include pledges to create jobs, lower taxes, lower electricity bills and enter into more international free trade agreements.Daniel Noboa, a political outsider, was the unexpected second-place winner on Sunday.Dolores Ochoa/Associated Press“It’s a big surprise, especially in the fact that the debate did have an effect,” said Arturo Moscoso, Quito-based political scientist. But he added, “For many Ecuadoreans he is an unknown.”Mr. Noboa positioned himself as “the employment president,” even including an employment request form on his website, among other broad commitments to security and the economy. As a businessman and U.S. citizen who grew up in the United States, he is likely to favor American market-friendly interests, said Ms. Grais-Targow.While analysts predicted security to be the main issue in the election following the assassination, Mr. Noboa’s success shows that in a country where just 34 percent of Ecuadoreans have adequate employment, according to government data, the economy is still top of mind.One voter, Carlos Andrés Eras, 31, said he supported Mr. Noboa because he saw him as a well-prepared politician with clear proposals.“It is not improvised; he has been putting together his political project little by little,” said Mr. Eras, who owns a jewelry store in Guayaquil. “He concentrated on giving his points and answered what was raised in the question without attacking anyone.”Mr. Noboa came in just behind the leftist establishment candidate, Ms. González.Backed by the powerful party of Mr. Correa, the former president, Ms. González, 45, has appealed to voter nostalgia for the economic and security situation under the Correa administration, when homicide rates were low and a commodities boom helped lift millions out of poverty.“It is the first time in the history of Ecuador that a woman has obtained such a high percentage in the first round,” said Ms. González in her postelection speech. “We are going to have that homeland again with hope, with dignity, with security.”A soldier guarding a polling station in Quito, Ecuador, on Sunday.Carlos Noriega/Associated PressGermán Montoya, a voter and the owner of a plastic company in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, said extortion payments demanded by gangs were hurting his business and had pushed him to vote for Ms. González.“‘Mr. Montoya, I can’t go there, here, because they charge me a toll,’” he said his employees tell him. The trucks are charged $50 to make deliveries in different parts of Guayaquil, Mr. Montoya, 37, said.Jordy Gonzales, a 23-year-old construction worker, felt similarly. Mr. Correa’s party, he said, “did things right, and we are going to see if this time, if God allows it, it will be like before.”If Ms. González wins the election in October, it will show the staying power of Mr. Correa as a dominant political force in Ecuador despite being out of power for six years.He has lived in Belgium since he left office, fleeing an eight-year prison sentence for campaign-finance violations. But experts predict that in the event of a González victory, he would be likely to return to the country and try to seek office again before the next president’s tenure expires in May 2025.Beyond Sunday’s presidential election, Ecuadoreans also voted to end drilling in the Amazon, dealing a major blow to the government, which had been lobbying to continue oil operations.The section of jungle on the ballot, part of Yasuní National Park, is one of the most ecologically rich places on Earth and home to Indigenous people who want no contact with outsiders.The state oil company, Petroecuador, will have roughly a year and a half to wind up its operations in the area, though experts say shutting down the oil field could take six to 10 years.According to Andrés Martínez Moscoso, a law professor at the San Francisco de Quito University, neither the president, Congress nor a new referendum can undo Sunday’s results.The decision is “a very clear signal, especially to the international community, of the population’s desire to turn this extractive economy around,” said Ms. Ávila. It would also force future governments to think of “other ways of generating income that are not exclusively from oil.”Genevieve Glatsky More

There are two ways to read the stack of indictments and impeachments the 45th president of the United States has amassed so far. They can be regarded, accurately, as America’s case against Donald Trump. Indictment is a legal action whereas impeachment is a political act, but when taken together the texts provide a singular and consistent case. They capture the progression of transgression evident in Trump’s political campaigns, his presidency and its aftermath, with each escape from accountability yielding a bolder and more reckless iteration of Trump.But the documents also reveal Trump’s case against the United States — dismissing America as a nation where politics serves as a defense against law and repudiating its people as easily and willingly misled, by ever escalating levels of deceit.Trump’s first indictment, for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal payments to women with whom he had extramarital affairs, offers an early and straightforward example of his deception. Concerned that the revelations would hurt his presidential campaign — or make him lose to Hillary Clinton by even more than expected or just antagonize Melania — he “orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication,” per the statement of facts compiled by the district attorney of New York County. Whether or not that effort also involved violations of electoral or tax law, it succeeded in hiding “damaging information from the voting public.” In short, the indictment contends, Trump obscured the truth.Once in office, Trump’s power to deceive grew and his fear of exposure diminished. His attempted strong-arming of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in 2019 — dangling security assistance and a possible White House visit in exchange for “a favor” — was in keeping with his actions during the 2016 race, just more daring. He was still trying to improve his electoral prospects. But instead of using his own money to suppress negative stories, Trump was now withholding congressionally appropriated funds from Ukraine in order to generate negative stories about his potential 2020 general-election opponent, Joe Biden, and to feed the notion that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. The first article of impeachment in the Ukraine affair asserts that Trump “engaged in this scheme” — there’s that word again — “for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit.”Another scheme, a bigger lie. This time, Trump didn’t just hide the truth; he sought to distort it. And even when “faced with the public revelation of his actions,” the articles of impeachment note, the president continued to “openly and corruptly” urge Ukraine to open investigations that would help Trump politically. Such shamelessness is possible only from a president confident that enough voters will share it.The recent indictment by the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., covers a multitude of alleged crimes — like issuing false statements and filing false documents, forgery, conspiracy to defraud the state, solicitation of the violation of an oath by a public officer — but it comes down to a single corrupt purpose: Once Trump lost the 2020 election, the outgoing president sought to reverse or at least delegitimize the outcome.We experience Trump’s impeachments and indictments only in the order in which they came out, a sequence that does not neatly track the chronology or intensity of his misdeeds. Trump progressed from hiding reality with the hush-money payments (indictment No. 1), to remaking reality with the attempted shakedown of Ukraine (impeachment No. 1), to ignoring reality with his insistence that he had won re-election and that other officials should affirm that belief (indictment Nos. 3 and 4). The next step was obvious — to change reality by force. So came Jan. 6 (addressed in impeachment No. 2 as well as indictments Nos. 3 and 4, for those keeping score at home).Trump’s mendacity about the 2020 election was legal; as Jack Smith, the latest special counsel appointed by the Justice Department to investigate him, put it, “the Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud.” His alleged actions and conspiracies in furtherance of those lies — pushing officials to ignore the popular vote in their states, disenfranchising voters, encouraging fake slates of electors — were not, according to the indictment. And once the attempts to claim a counterfactual victory were rejected in the courts, in the states and by his own vice president, the call for violence was all that was left. “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump declared on Jan. 6.That line was quoted in Trump’s second impeachment, in support of its lone article, incitement of insurrection. It was one of three utterances by the president included in the document. The other two were, “We won this election, and we won it by a landslide” (also from Jan. 6) and then a single word, “find,” from Trump’s request to the secretary of state of Georgia to manufacture more votes for him, just enough to win. Those quotes also show the Trumpian progression: The lie, the scheme to support it and the brutishness to enforce it.Trump’s indictment for retaining and concealing classified information after leaving office — and for obstructing the investigations into the matter — nicely captures the former president’s attitude toward truth and law. According to the document, when he consulted his lawyers about how to respond to a grand jury subpoena for any classified material in his possession, Trump asked, “What happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?” (As if you can just ghost a federal grand jury.) He also wondered aloud, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”Isn’t it better just to lie? For Trump, the answer is almost always yes.Rusty Bowers, a former speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, who resisted Trump’s blandishments.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesIn early 2018, the political activist Amy Siskind published “The List: A Week-By-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year.” Faithful to its title, the book numbered various misdeeds of the early Trump presidency — each norm and institution degraded, every truth or conflict of interest ignored — totaling thousands of offenses, large and small. The work was especially useful in a refresher-course sort of way; as I wrote then, “it is remarkable how much we can forget, in the shock of the moment, about the previous shock of the moment.”I thought about “The List” once again while reading and rereading the Trump indictments and impeachments. The descriptions of the former president’s alleged actions in these documents — even just a sampling of the verbs — offer their own refresher on the past seven years:Abused. Compromised. Persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting. Served to cover up. Threatened the integrity. Betrayed his trust. Repeatedly and fraudulently falsified. Disguised. Endeavored to obstruct. Did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate. Pursued unlawful means. Used knowingly false claims. Publicly maligned. Refused to accept. Hid and concealed. Constituted a criminal organization. Falsely accused. And, of course, spread lies.One of the Trump era’s recurring questions (a bit quaint now) has been whether Trump lies knowingly or truly believes the untruths he professes. These documents leave little doubt that Trump was told, repeatedly, that his lies were just that, and by officials close to him. David French summarized the latest indictment against Trump in The Times this way: “The Georgia case is about lies. It’s about lying, it’s about conspiring to lie, and it’s about attempting to coax others to lie.”Much the same could be said of the other Trump indictments and of his impeachments, too. They’re all about his lies and about the country’s willingness to countenance them.There are individuals in these documents like Rusty Bowers, a former speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, who, when Trump urged him to appoint new presidential electors from the state, responded: “I voted for you. I worked for you. I campaigned for you. I just won’t do anything illegal for you.” But there are many who believe and enable Trump’s lies, whether out of conviction, allegiance or expedience. His overwhelming lead in the early polling for the next Republican nomination and his current tie with Biden in a possible 2024 rematch exist despite — or, at times, because of — those lies.Trump’s impeachments in 2019 and 2021 did not yield convictions in his Senate trials, and now, after the indictments of 2023, new trials await. Yet even criminal convictions would not ease the political challenge that Trumpism poses. They may even exacerbate it.Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, in his individual statement appended to the 1974 report by the Senate committee on Watergate, warned that “law alone will not suffice to prevent future Watergates.” Ervin wrote that “the only sure antidote” is to elect leaders who understand the principles of our government and display the intellectual and moral integrity to uphold them. Their election is not in the hands of prosecutors or lawmakers, but of voters. Our choices, as Smith might put it, are also outcome-determinative.It is fitting that legal as well as political remedies have been brought to bear on Trump. His transgressions span both worlds and play out in the haze between them. Trump seems to hope that politics can save him from law. That belief is his indictment of both.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Top Democrats, suddenly feeling a bit better about 2024, would love to see Republicans talk about a national abortion ban. They’re less excited about the inevitable Hunter Biden tirades.After a year of fretting about President Biden’s political standing and their electoral chances in 2024, Democrats are at a moment of high confidence as Republicans prepare for their first presidential debate on Wednesday.They will be watching with bated breath in hopes that the Republican candidates embrace the likely-to-be-absent Donald J. Trump, defend him over his four criminal indictments, endorse national restrictions on abortion and — in the Democrats’ dream scenario — call for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.Even without Mr. Trump onstage, Democrats see the Republican White House hopefuls as avatars for what they describe as a party in thrall to its extreme elements. Nobody is rooting for the debate to go off the rails more than Democrats praying for Mr. Biden’s re-election.“All I want these people to do is say the same stuff they’ve been saying on the campaign trail on national TV,” said Jim Messina, the campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election bid. “Please continue to double down on a six-week abortion ban. That would be wonderful. Thank you for doing this.”Mr. Biden probably won’t watch the debate, a spokesman said, but odds are that his compatriots will. Here’s what Democrats are looking for from the Republicans on the debate stage in Milwaukee.Will they rally around a national abortion ban?Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, Democrats have used the abortion issue to turbocharge their voters — particularly in red and purple states like Kansas, Wisconsin and, this month, Ohio.Nothing would make Democrats happier than to see Republicans embrace a national ban on abortion during a nationally televised debate. When Mr. Trump held a CNN town hall event in May, the moment that had Democrats doing cartwheels afterward was not his continued denial of the 2020 election results, but when he took a victory lap for the Supreme Court’s decision.“I’d like to see a huge defense of President Trump and a full-on assault on reproductive freedom and abortion,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat. “To me, that would be a gift that would keep on giving.”In reality, many of the Republican candidates have tended to be more cagey about the issue.Mr. Trump, at the CNN event, declined to call for a national abortion ban, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has also treaded carefully despite signing a six-week prohibition into law in Florida this year. But avoiding the subject may be tricky given former Vice President Mike Pence’s enthusiastic support for limiting abortion rights.How much do Republicans cozy up to Trump?Mr. Trump probably won’t be at the debate, but Democrats expect nearly all of the candidates onstage to make explicit plays for his share of the Republican base — a move Democrats hope will focus attention on their own efforts to brand the entire G.O.P. as the party of MAGA.“It doesn’t matter who ‘wins’ the debate on Wednesday, the MAGA Republican presidential candidates have all chosen a losing strategy that is extreme and out of touch with the American people,” Michael Tyler, the communications director for Mr. Biden’s campaign, wrote in memo to supporters on Friday.Mr. Biden has for months been on a mission to paint all Republicans as marching in lock step with Mr. Trump’s most loyal, hard-right supporters. On Wednesday, Democrats are hoping to see Republicans engaged in stylistic efforts to attract Trump voters.“I’m a wrestling fan,” said Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “I’m imagining a royal rumble on the debate stage, sort of a rehash of the debates in 2016 where they’re talking about each other’s mamas and all kinds of craziness.”But one lesson that has been abundantly clear in the Trump era of politics is that no other Republican can get away with the type of outrage and public shamelessness that Mr. Trump regularly evinces.Mr. DeSantis’s efforts to be a drama-free, more competent version of Mr. Trump have flopped so far. Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech executive who has sought to portray himself as a millennial version of Trump, has risen in early polling but remains largely unknown.Will the Trump indictments be a focus?The biggest story about Mr. Trump is the one Mr. Biden won’t talk about — the four criminal indictments the former president is facing.The problem for the Republicans running against Mr. Trump is that many of their voters agree with his belief that the cases against him are politically motivated.Democrats on the sidelines have been left waiting, to little avail, for Mr. Trump’s G.O.P. rivals to make a case to their voters that the legal problems are politically disqualifying.“Normally candidates would be more than happy to point out if their opponent has been indicted four times!” Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota wrote in a text message. “They ARE running against him after all.”That plea is unlikely to get much airtime on Wednesday. Of the candidates onstage, only former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey — who is running an anti-Trump campaign that has won him new respect from Democrats — has made an explicit case that Mr. Trump’s indictments have merit and are bad for the party.What about Hunter Biden?One thing the Republican candidates are all but certain to do is equate Mr. Trump’s legal problems with those of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who is facing his own special counsel investigation after a plea agreement on tax and gun charges fell apart last month.Democrats aren’t exactly popping popcorn for this scenario — it is an intensely painful episode for the president, and the prospect of a criminal trial isn’t appealing to them — but they are confident that any detour down a Hunter Biden rabbit hole will take emphasis away from issues that moderate and independent voters care about.“If Republicans want to make this election about attacks on the president’s family, it’s a losing strategy,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat. “It would be a mistake for them to make that an issue.”Democrats hope to dispel with the fiction that it won’t be Trump.Democrats widely view Mr. Trump as the easiest Republican candidate to defeat next year. Mr. Biden beat him once already, they reason, and Mr. Trump’s cascading legal problems and singular ability to repel moderate Republicans and swing voters make him the one they’d like to face.Mr. Trump’s dominance in polls of the Republican primary and the reluctance of most of his G.O.P. rivals to attack him have led most Democrats to conclude that Wednesday’s debate, along with much of the primary, are an academic exercise being held before next year’s Trump-Biden rematch.“I was just going to watch it for comic relief,” said Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat. “This is done. We are going to have Trump versus Biden 2.0. That’s what’s about to happen. Anyone who is kidding themselves into believing that they have a shot is just delusional.”And for the cast of candidates who barely qualified for the Republican stage, hoping that a standout debate performance would propel them to relevance — a TV show, a future cabinet post or maybe a campaign for some other office — a former presidential long shot had a piece of advice.“Learn how to count to 200,” said Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who, many people may have forgotten, ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. “Because that’s about the amount of seconds that you’re going to have to speak.” More

La candidata de la izquierda tradicional y un empresario relativamente nuevo en la política fueron los más votados en los comicios del domingo.Una candidata de la izquierda tradicional y un empresario neófito en la política parecen ser los dos candidatos más votados en la primera vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales de Ecuador del domingo. Este ciclo electoral se ha centrado en la frustración de los votantes con la creciente violencia de las bandas y los carteles de la droga en el país.Luisa González, quien fue respaldada por un expresidente socialista, y el candidato outsider Daniel Noboa recibieron el mayor porcentaje de votos con el 84 por ciento de las actas escrutadas. Se enfrentarán en una segunda vuelta electoral el 15 de octubre.Todo parece indicar que la economía y la seguridad serán los temas principales de cara a la segunda vuelta, en un momento en el que bandas callejeras y de prisiones locales, junto con las mafias de la droga extranjeras, han desatado una ola de violencia inédita en la historia reciente del país, lo que ha incrementado las tasas de homicidio a niveles récord,afectando a la industria del turismo, un sector vital.Las preocupaciones por el aumento de la inseguridad se intensificaron a principios de este mes, cuando el candidato presidencial Fernando Villavicencio fue asesinado en plena campaña electoral.González lideró la votación, obteniendo el 33 por ciento de los votos, con el 84 por ciento de las actas escrutadas, seguida de Noboa, el inesperado segundo lugar, quien obtuvo el 24 por ciento. Hace solo unas semanas, Noboa aparecía con porcentajes de una sola cifra de respaldo en los sondeos.Los resultados oficiales completos se esperaban más tarde el domingo por la noche.Ecuador también votó el domingo para detener la extracción de petróleo en uno de los rincones con mayor biodiversidad de la Amazonía, una victoria de una década de esfuerzos de un grupo de activistas ambientales para hacer que una consulta popular fuera presentada a los votantes.La primera vuelta electoral del domingo respondió a la convocatoria a elecciones anticipadas que hizo en mayo el presidente Guillermo Lasso en medio de un proceso de destitución en su contra por acusaciones de malversación de fondos y a la creciente insatisfacción de los votantes por la crisis de seguridad nacional.Ecuador —un país de 18 millones de habitantes— solía ser un remanso de tranquilidad en comparación con la vecina Colombia, que durante décadas fue devastada por la violencia de grupos guerrilleros y paramilitares armados y carteles de la droga. A medida que eso cambió en los últimos años después de que Colombia forjara un acuerdo de paz, la industria del narcotráfico se volvió cada vez más poderosa en Ecuador.González lideró en los comicios con 33 por ciento de los votos en los primeros conteos.Karen Toro/ReutersEntre noticias que regularmente presentan decapitaciones, coches bomba, asesinatos de policías, jóvenes colgados de puentes y niños asesinados a tiros fuera de sus hogares y escuelas, los ecuatorianos esperan un nuevo liderazgo que pueda restaurar la convivencia pacífica que alguna vez dieron por sentado.Estos resultados que favorecieron a González y Noboa demuestran que “todavía existe una base fuerte y leal al correísmo suficiente como para hacer avanzar a González a la segunda vuelta”, dijo Risa Grais-Targow, directora para América Latina de Eurasia Group, un instituto de investigación, refiriéndose al movimiento de izquierda del expresidente Rafael Correa, quien gobernó de 2007 a 2017.Sin embargo, dijo que “existe una gran parte de la población que en realidad quiere algo completamente diferente. Quieren un nuevo rostro”.El segundo lugar, obtenido por Noboa, fue la sorpresa de la noche, ya que hasta hace solo unas semana las encuestas lo ubicaban en el fondo del grupo de ocho candidatos.“La juventud optó por la opción de Daniel Noboa”, dijo Noboa en una conferencia de prensa el domingo por la noche. “No sería la primera vez que una nueva propuesta le dé la vuelta al establishment electoral”, agregó, refiriéndose a sí mismo.El empresario de 35 años proviene de una de las familias más ricas de América Latina, conocida por la mayoría de los ecuatorianos por su imperio bananero. Su padre se postuló sin éxito cinco veces a la presidencia, pero la carrera política del joven Noboa apenas se remonta a 2021, cuando fue elegido para la Asamblea Nacional de Ecuador.“Tiene una votación que está familiarizada con la marca Noboa, con el apellido Noboa y que ahora ha sido muy exitosamente energizado, refrescado además con un rostro nuevo”, dijo Caroline Ávila, analista política ecuatoriana. “Captura la atención de los jóvenes, principal masa de votantes indecisos. Son ellos quienes le están colocando en la segunda vuelta”.Al parecer, la campaña de Noboa logró despegar apenas el domingo pasado, cuando impresionó a muchos ecuatorianos con su participación en el debate.“Descolla en el debate. Habla bien, habla de corrido, sin complicarse mucho, sin pelear”, dijo Ávila, la analista política. “Y ha generado mucho interés en estas semanas posdebate”.Como asambleísta y miembro del movimiento político Acción Democrática Nacional, Noboa respaldó leyes para atraer inversión internacional y reducir impuestos, afirmó Grace Jaramillo, profesora ecuatoriana de politología en la Universidad de Columbia Británica.​​Sus propuestas incluyen compromisos para crear empleos, reducir los impuestos, disminuir las tarifas eléctricas e impulsar más tratados internacionales de libre comercio.Daniel Noboa, un outsider político, obtuvo el inesperado segundo lugar el domingo.Dolores Ochoa/Associated Press“Es una gran sorpresa, sobre todo en el hecho de que el debate sí tuvo efectos”, dijo Arturo Moscoso, un politólogo radicado en Quito. Pero, agregó: “Para muchos ecuatorianos es una incógnita”.Noboa se presentó como el “presidente de empleo”, e incluso incluyó un formulario de solicitud de empleo en su página web, entre otras promesas más generales sobre la seguridad y la economía. Debido a que es empresario y un ciudadano estadounidense que creció en Estados Unidos, es muy probable que sea receptivo con los intereses favorables al mercado estadounidense, afirmó Grais-Targow.Aunque los analistas predecían que la seguridad sería el tema más importante en la elección tras el asesinato, el éxito de Noboa muestra que en un país donde solo el 34 por ciento de los ecuatorianos tiene un empleo adecuado, según información del gobierno, la economía sigue siendo un tema crucial.Carlos Andrés Eras, de 31 años, dijo que había votado por Noboa porque lo veía como un político bien preparado con propuestas claras.“No es un improvisado, el proyecto como político lo ha ido armando poco a poco”, dijo Eras, quien es dueño de una joyería en Guayaquil. “Se concentró en dar sus puntos y respondía lo que se planteaba en la pregunta sin atacar a nadie”.Noboa quedó en segundo lugar, muy cerca de la candidata de la izquierda tradicional, González.Respaldada por el poderoso partido de Correa, el expresidente, González, de 45 años, ha apelado a la nostalgia de los votantes por la situación económica y de seguridad bajo el gobierno de Correa, cuando las tasas de homicidios eran bajas y el auge de las materias primas ayudó a sacar a millones de personas de la pobreza.“Es la primera vez en la historia del Ecuador que una mujer saca tan alto porcentaje en primera vuelta”, dijo González en su discurso poselectoral. “Vamos a volver a tener esa patria con esperanza, con dignidad, con seguridad”.Un soldado custodiando un lugar de votación en Quito, Ecuador, el domingo.Carlos Noriega/Associated PressGermán Montoya, votante y propietario de una empresa de plásticos en Guayaquil, la ciudad más grande de Ecuador, dijo que los pagos de extorsión que exigen las bandas estaban perjudicando su negocio y lo habían empujado a votar por González.“‘Señor Montoya, no puedo ir para acá, para allá, porque me cobran un peaje’”, contó que le dicen sus empleados. A los camiones les cobran 50 dólares para hacer entregas en distintos lugares de Guayaquil, dijo Montoya, de 37 años.Jordy Gonzales, un albañil de 23 años, sentía algo similar. El partido de Correa, dijo, “hizo las cosas bien, y vamos a ver si esta vez, si Dios lo permite, vuelva a ser como antes”.Si González gana las elecciones en octubre, demostrará el poder de permanencia de Correa como una fuerza política dominante en Ecuador a pesar de haber estado fuera durante seis años.Correa ha vivido en Bélgica desde que dejó el cargo, huyendo de una sentencia de prisión de ocho años por violaciones al financiamiento de campañas. Sin embargo, los expertos predicen que, en caso de una victoria de González, probablemente regresaría al país y trataría de buscar la presidencia nuevamente cuando expire el próximo mandato presidencial en mayo de 2025.Ecuador también votó a favor de detener la extracción petrolera en uno de los rincones más biodiversos de la Amazonía, lo que significa un golpe para el gobierno, que había estado impulsando las operaciones petroleras. La zona de la selva incluida en la votación, la cual forma parte del Parque Nacional Yasuní, es uno de los lugares con más riqueza ecológica en el planeta y alberga comunidades indígenas que no desean contacto con extraños.La compañía estatal petrolera, Petroecuador, tendrá aproximadamente un año y medio para clausurar sus operaciones en la zona, aunque los expertos consideran que cerrar el campo petrolífero podría demorar de seis a 10 años. Según Andrés Martínez Moscoso, profesor de derecho en la Universidad San Francisco de Quito, ni el presidente, ni la Asamblea Nacional ni una nueva consulta popular pueden revertir los resultados del domingo.Según Caroline Ávila, analista política ecuatoriana, la decisión significaría “una señal muy clara, sobre todo a la comunidad internacional del deseo de la población de darle un giro a esta economía extractivista”. También obligará a futuros gobiernos “a pensar otros espacios, otras formas de generar ingresos que no sean exclusivamente del petróleo”.Genevieve Glatsky More