In Ecuador's highlands, an Indigenous community faces choice between 2 candidates they don't trust

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COCHAPAMBA, Ecuador (AP) — The two candidates vying for Ecuador’s presidency in a second-round run-off never campaigned in Cochapamba. Their faces are nowhere to be seen in this remote Indigenous community in the Ecuadorian highlands. Yet, their eyes are set on this and other small towns across the Andean country that will be key in the April 13 election, which will give the winner a full four-year term.

People here are loyal to Indigenous leader Leonidas Iza, who appeared on Sunday’s ballot but finished a distant third after receiving half a million votes. In April, however, they will have to decide between President Daniel Noboa or leftist lawyer Luisa González.

The run-off will be a repeat of the 2023 snap election, prompted by the dissolution of the National Assembly, in which Noboa earned a truncated 16-month presidency after the wealthy businessman campaigned on controlling Ecuador’s crime wave of recent years.

Situated at more than 3,600 meters (12,000 feet) above sea level, Cochapamba is home to approximately 6,000 people, whose livelihoods center around cultivating and selling white onions. They are all Indigenous and speak Kichwa and Spanish.

Last Sunday, residents of Cochapamba went out to vote, with some walking for up to two hours to reach a poll station and cast their votes.

While the official results from the National Electoral Council have not yet been broken down to such a local level, the official tally shows that in Sunday’s vote, the province of Cotopaxi — where Cochapamba is located — 37.6% voted for Noboa and 29.3% for the Indigenous leader Iza. González came in third, with 27.7% of the vote.

In 2023, in the second round that again pitted Noboa against González, more than 72% of Cochapamba voters favored the former, a candidate they have never seen in person. It now remains to be seen who they will support in three months.

“We thought (Noboa) was a young man who was really going to make a difference, but up to this point, at least for me, he has lied,” said Fernando Perdomo, a 46-year-old member of the Decentralized Autonomous Government (GAD), as the local authority in Cochapamba is called.

As for González, a lawyer with limited political experience, locals view her with distrust as the political heir of former President Rafael Correa, who governed Ecuador from 2007 through 2017. He grew increasingly authoritarian in the latter years of his presidency and was sentenced to prison in absentia in 2020 in a corruption scandal.

Correa “disdained Indigenous people,” said Perdomo, adding that now the local community is waiting for instructions from the leadership of the confederation of Indigenous peoples of Ecuador to decide which candidate they will support in the runoff.

Yet, the overall mood in Cochapamba is of distrust — and disappointment.

“I’d be deeply disappointed if all the candidates' promises were forgotten,” said Gloria Llugsha, a 28-year-old mother of two. In her view, presidents only remember the people when they need their support.

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