On a recent Sunday morning, Ecuadorians awoke to find that the front pages of two widely circulated newspapers were blank.<\/p>\n
The empty pages of\u00a0Expreso<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Extra<\/em>\u00a0were the publisher\u2019s way of drawing attention to the government\u2019s alleged effort to take it over. \u201cCivil liberties in Ecuador are under systematic attack,\u201d media company Gr\u00e1ficos Nacionales SA, or Granasa, warned the next day after several board members were hit with criminal charges amid a government-led dispute over 40 percent of its shares.<\/p>\n The protest shed light on how the South American country\u2019s US-aligned president, Daniel Noboa, appears to be consolidating power in ways that are causing growing unease in civil society. One week it\u2019s political parties, the next it\u2019s the courts. Now it\u2019s the media.<\/p>\n Government officials \u201care using institutions like the Internal Revenue Service, the prosecutor\u2019s office, the corporate regulator and the anti-laundering unit to pursue critical voices so that nobody can put the real problems of the country under a magnifying glass,\u201d said Gabriela Panchana, a board member of non-governmental organisation Rumbo Plural, or \u00abPlural Way,\u00bb which advocates for open democratic debate.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe could wake up like another Nicaragua,\u201d Panchana said.<\/p>\n In the case of Granasa, the corporate regulator\u00a0accuses<\/a>\u00a0the publisher\u2019s board of governance violations in the transfer of the 40-percent stake. The president\u2019s office referred a request for comment on Granasa to the regulator.\u00a0<\/p>\n Noboa, the Harvard-educated son of a banana tycoon, said in a\u00a0recent interview<\/a>\u00a0he is deploying \u201can iron fist with a heart\u201d to combat drug-related crime while introducing economic reforms to boost growth and employment.\u00a0<\/p>\n As part of his crime-fighting efforts, Noboa is imposing a two-week nighttime curfew covering a wide swathe of the country including Quito, the capital, for two weeks in May, the second such action since March. The curfews are part of a wider crackdown on organised crime that has turned Ecuador into one of the world\u2019s most violent countries.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Bond spreads collapse<\/strong><\/p>\n Judging by the bond market, foreign investors remain upbeat on Ecuador under Noboa, who was sworn in for a full four-year term in May 2025 after serving out the remainder of his predecessor\u2019s term starting in late 2023. Since then, sovereign bond spreads to comparable US Treasuries have collapsed fivefold to only around 400 basis points, according to a JPMorgan index. Noboa is pledging to hit 350-300 basis points this year and bring them down further in 2027.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if there is some backlash at home, it doesn\u2019t seem to be at least so far spreading to the investment community,\u201d said Eurasia Latin America Director Risa Grais-Targow. She points out that Noboa is delivering on an International Monetary Fund programme and is seeking to open up key sectors for investment.<\/p>\n Still, some local business leaders have said they\u2019re worried about an erosion of rule of law, exemplified by the Granasa case.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s happened to Granasa is another chapter of Ecuadorian democratic weakness,\u201d including attacks on both entrepreneurial freedom and on freedom of expression, threatening the rule of law and private property, said Mar\u00eda Paz Jervis, president of the Pichincha Chamber of Industry. \u201cWithout democracy, there\u2019s no economic development, no growth.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodrigo G\u00f3mez de la Torre, president of the Chamber of Agriculture of north-central Ecuador, echoed the concerns. Freedom of expression and media is non-negotiable and \u201cno government may silence voices, all the more if they\u2019re critical,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Partly free\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In the view of Plural Way, rival populist political organisations, led by the current president on one side and left-wing former president Rafael Correa on the other, are undermining Ecuador\u2019s democracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recent actions against judges and the media are reminiscent of Correa\u2019s decade in office, when he seized control of the courts and sued newspaper El Universo<\/em> for libel. The newspaper, bought by an Argentine-based consortium in February, has since lost top columnists and its veteran political cartoonist amid censorship allegations.<\/p>\n \u201cThere has been democratic backsliding for a while now, and Noboa and his allies may be taking things even a step further than Correa,\u201d said John Polga-Hecimovich, professor of political science at the US Naval Academy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since Noboa took office late 2023, Ecuador slipped from \u201cfree\u201d back to \u201cpartly free\u201d in annual rankings by US democracy advocacy organisation Freedom House, behind Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia, though still above El Salvador and Mexico. The group published its 2026 ranking last month.<\/p>\n Ecuador\u2019s decline in the democracy ranking is manifested in other ways. Among vulnerable groups, the Noboa government has been mobilising the state to freeze the bank accounts of dozens of environmental and indigenous rights defenders, including prominent ecologist Bel\u00e9n P\u00e1ez. Her Pachamama Foundation, which opposes oil drilling in the Amazon rainforest, was persecuted under Correa and is now fending off state pressure under Noboa.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s office didn\u2019t reply to requests for comment on the allegations of democratic backsliding.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018New Ecuador\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Noboa says he\u2019s battling crime and ushering in a \u201cNew Ecuador\u201d that\u2019s boosting private-sector investment, public infrastructure and housing, achievements that he says critics refuse to acknowledge. \u201cThere\u2019s no political crisis,\u201d he said in an April 12 local radio interview.<\/p>\n The latest controversy over the court came after a March 27 decision by the National Electoral Council, or CNE, to hold local elections in November \u2013\u00a0three months early \u2013 citing a 62-percent risk of a severe El Ni\u00f1o climate phenomenon, which typically causes heavy flooding, later in the year.<\/p>\n Correa\u2019s left-wing Citizen Revolution, or RC, was previously suspended from participating because of allegations of illegal campaign financing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA de-facto<\/em> ban of the main opposition party is pretty concerning,\u201d said Polga-Hecimovich.\u00a0<\/p>\n Critics allege that advancing the elections is illegal, adding that the move could make it easier for Noboa\u2019s National Democratic Action party, or ADN, to win control of big cities, including Quito and Guayaquil, that are currently run by RC-allied mayors. Aquiles Alvarez, Guayaquil\u2019s mayor, has been jailed at a new maximum security prison ahead of trial for alleged fuel smuggling. He denies wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Noboa has said his party won\u2019t benefit from the earlier election date, and the head of the electoral board says all parties face the same organisational challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n A decision over the legality of the early vote is now in the hands of Ecuador\u2019s Constitutional Court, which refused last year to allow the government to suspend some basic rights via legislation. In recent days the court has urged citizens to remain \u201cvigilant\u201d toward alleged threats to the constitutional order after two of its nine judges came under investigation for holding potential illicit assets.<\/p>\n UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, has repeatedly raised\u00a0red flags<\/a>\u00a0over risks to Ecuador\u2019s judicial system.\u00a0<\/p>\n In its 2026 World Report<\/em> issued in February, Human Rights Watch said the Noboa administration \u201chas advanced laws and measures that endanger rights, undermine the independence and security of Constitutional Court justices, and threaten constitutional safeguards.\u201d At the same time, structural problems including access to health care and employment \u201cremain largely unaddressed.\u201d<\/p>\n by Stephan Kueffner, Bloomberg<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nrelated news<\/h6>\n<\/p>\n<\/section>\n