Ecuador: Between Oligarchic Violence and Popular Majorities

Ecuador: Between Oligarchic Violence and Popular Majorities

Written on 13 January 2026. Posted in Ecuador

BY MANUEL BAYÓN JIMÉNEZ FOR INDIGENOUS DEBATES

In the middle of the world lies a plurinational, anti-oligarchic bloc capable of changing the country's course in a matter of weeks. Following his presidential victory, Daniel Noboa launched an unprecedented and violent police and military crackdown that included the killing of Indigenous people. Yet, just as it seemed the country was being engulfed by an oligarchic tide, the Ecuadorian people rejected both the call for a constitutional reform and the installation of United States military bases in the Galápagos Islands.

Daniel Noboa's victory in the second round of the April 2025 elections confirmed that Ecuador's electoral majority had shifted to the right. Noboa is the son of Álvaro Noboa, a five-time presidential candidate, and the nephew of Isabel Noboa, Ecuador's most powerful business magnate, whose wealth stems primarily from the banana industry but also from real estate and mining. In the first round of voting in February, the progressive candidate Luisa González, from former president Rafael Correa's (2007-2017) party, had tied with Noboa.

At first glance, the overall vote for the left slightly exceeded the combined vote for the right. In fact, the left reached an agreement to vote against the oligarchic candidate, who during his year in office had pushed through neoliberal reforms and militarised the country, leading to serious human rights violations -including the extrajudicial killing of four Afro-Ecuadorian children detained by the army. This technical tie shifted in the weeks leading up to the runoff due to cash handouts and gifts, and with a National Electoral Council that allowed the incumbent president and candidate, Noboa, to campaign using public funds. Amid allegations of fraud on election day itself, Noboa won by ten points and was declared president.

However, after the election, the Constitutional Court - which had endorsed the irregular presidential campaign - ruled against the government on several of its militarisation decrees, triggering a major institutional crisis. As a form of pressure, Noboa proposed a constitutional reform without the endorsement of the Constitutional Court and called for marches around its headquarters, directly targeting the magistrates. At one point, an attempt was even made to evacuate the Court building over an alleged bomb threat.

A War Against the Popular Sectors

Amid this institutional crisis, on 12 September the government issued Decree 126, which eliminated the diesel subsidy. This measure had been a decisive factor behind the popular and Indigenous uprisings of October 2019 and June 2022, which paralysed the country for eight and eighteen days respectively. Both uprisings ended after negotiations between the Indigenous movement and the government in power, which ultimately withdrew the measure. The popular mobilisation over fuel subsidies rests on two premises: on the one hand, the rising cost of the basic food basket; on the other, the measure removes the only mechanism that mitigates the enrichment of economic groups that have benefited from oil extraction.

In response, the leadership of the Indigenous movement, trade union centres and left-wing organisations called for mobilisation against Decree 126. A few days later, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) announced a national strike to begin on 22 September. As a show of force, the Ecuadorian government temporarily moved the presidency to Latacunga, a city south of Quito, and the vice-presidency to Otavalo, in the north. Both cities are home to two of the country's most influential Indigenous organisations - those of Cotopaxi and Imbabura provinces - the very centres of the 2019 and 2022 uprisings.

During the first days of the strike, the Constitutional Court finally granted the government authorisation for the popular consultation, after it had applied through the ordinary route. Four questions were approved: two populist ones, regarding the reduction of assembly members in the legislature and the elimination of public funding for political parties; and two of greater significance - allowing United States military bases on Ecuadorian soil (in line with Donald Trump's military agenda) and the key question: convening a new constituent process. In this way, the oligarchic government was effectively declaring war on the popular sectors and setting the stage for the dismantling of one of the most advanced constitutions in terms of rights.

An Unprecedented Repression

The strike began with major roadblocks in the northern highlands, especially in Imbabura, accompanied by additional blockades in the central highlands and in Quito. There were also demonstrations in other parts of Ecuador, including in Cuenca, the country's third-largest city, which in the weeks prior to Decree 126 had seen a historic march against large transnational metal mining companies, following three popular referendums that had rejected mining activities. Acts of support were also recorded in 16 of the country's 24 provinces during the first three days of the national strike.

The military deployment multiplied the Ecuadorian State's capacity for warfare against the strike: assault rifles, military tanks, and the widespread use of helicopters and drones. At the same time, in the first days of the strike, the government carried out administrative repression by freezing 70 bank accounts belonging to individuals and institutions of social organisations and allied collectives, under the false pretext of pursuing terrorism and drug trafficking. This confirmed the warnings issued months earlier by human rights organisations regarding the Social Transparency Law, which restricts the right to association in the country.

In the face of this dictatorial deployment against the popular and Indigenous strike, human rights organisations began documenting the emerging situation of political persecution in Ecuador. On the one hand, the Human Rights Alliance reported assaults and detentions carried out by the State (continuing the reporting and legal action it undertook in 2019 and 2022). On the other, the monitoring carried out by the Coalition for Mapping State Repression, which during the 2022 uprising had tracked acts of state persecution and the mobilisations in support of the strike.

Despite their different methodologies, both sets of data documented an escalation in state violence from the very first day of the strike. The presence of the Vice-Presidency in Otavalo prompted a major military deployment in the demographic and symbolic capital of the Kichwa people which, from the outset, repressed the mobilisations through a novel form of direct repression against the peaceful marches and roadblocks of the Indigenous movement. The use of high-calibre bullets aimed at the bodies of demonstrators meant that, in the early days, numerous people were admitted to hospitals with gunshot wounds and extremely serious medical diagnoses.

A Government Determined to Kill

One of the first scenes that shook the country was the murder of Efraín Fueres, a Kichwa man from Cotacachi. CCTV footage showed soldiers shooting him and, far from providing medical assistance, beating the person who tried to help him and leaving both unconscious. The government initially denied the footage and later sought to justify it. In addition, twelve young Otavalo men who had been detained were reported missing and were eventually transferred to "maximum-security" prisons, where several prison massacres have taken place in recent years despite heavy militarisation. In the days that followed, detentions and violence were carried out against the marches in Quito, with particularly harsh images of repression against the Kichwa people of Saraguro in the southern highlands.

Repression spread throughout the country. In Saraguro (Loja), the elderly Kichwa woman Rosa Paqui died as a result of the indirect impact of tear gas canisters; and José Guamán, a Kichwa man from Otavalo (Imbabura), was killed by gunfire. There were also harrowing images of repression documented in Imbabura, including shots fired at people's faces from only a few metres away as they called for an end to the violence, and the cutting of Indigenous protesters' braided hair - a form of violence that recalls the era of hacienda slavery. As a stark display of the racism deployed by the State, the symbolic date of 12 October recorded the highest level of documented state repression.

According to the Coalition for Mapping Repression, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) added a series of demands to the strike: in addition to calling for the withdrawal of Decree 126, it demanded an end to extractive policies. Amid the state brutality unleashed in Otavalo, the strike intensified. The grassroots organisations of Otavalo, led by the Union of Peasant and Indigenous Organisations of Cotacachi (UNORCAC), rejected the contacts initiated by provincial leaders to bring the mobilisation to an end. The strike lasted 33 days, with 678 acts of mobilisation across the country's 24 provinces and 78 of its 224 cantons.

Imbabura Province, where Otavalo is located, registered 226 actions, and Pichincha Province, where Quito and Cayambe are located, recorded 195. Unlike in 2019 and 2022, CONAIE ended the strike on 24 October without securing any measures from the Ecuadorian State. The extensive military violence exercised, the government's ability to tighten its grip on part of the social movements, and the turmoil caused by organised crime violence in Ecuador all contributed to the State's greater capacity to counter the mobilisation in 2025. The strike made it clear that Daniel Noboa's government was set on securing constitutional change through military force.

To Halt Oligarchic Power

However, the strike led to a sharp drop in the president's popularity, both because of rising transport costs and basic goods, and due to the discredit brought on by the military and police violence deployed. Despite the defeat, the popular response was immediate: as soon as the strike ended, the campaign against the Constitutional Referendum began. For his part, the president failed to demonstrate what would be different or superior about a new constitution. Noboa only explained that it would be drafted by "notable" figures (from the right wing and the oligarchies) and, in the final days, even mentioned the importance of ChatGPT in drafting the constitutional text.

Meanwhile, the government announced that new United States military bases would be installed in the Galápagos Islands. The news generated a wave of outrage given the memory of the destruction wrought by the US Army during the Second World War in Ecuador's natural and symbolic emblem. Facing this, the government encountered a wide range of social sectors that carried out campaigns for the "NO". Through various messages, the opposition managed to mobilise the entire electorate with remarkable originality.

The result was a democratic rejection of President Daniel Noboa by more than 60% of the electorate-and consequently, of his political proposals, which combine oligarchic neoliberalism, patriarchal authoritarianism and fascist militarism. The strike and the referendum show that the only way to halt the absolute power of the elites who govern the country is through the articulation of popular sectors together with the peoples and nationalities of Ecuador.

Manuel Bayón Jiménez holds a degree in Geography (University of Valladolid) and a Master's in Urban Studies (FLACSO Ecuador). He is currently a researcher at the Colegio de México, holds a PhD in Territorial Studies from the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), and is a member of the Ecuadorian Critical Geography Collective and YASunidos.

Cover photo: La Raíz

Tags: Indigenous Debates