The 2008 constitution provides for a directly elected president. The president has the authority to dissolve the National Assembly, which triggers new elections for both the legislature and the presidency. In April 2021, Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, who had unsuccessfully run for president twice before, defeated Union for Hope candidate Andrés Arauz Galarza. Legislators failed in an attempt to impeach Lasso in 2022, but a majority voted to impeach in May 2023. Lasso then invoked a “mutual death” constitutional clause, allowing him to rule by decree with some judicial checks and triggering early elections.

The 2023 electoral period was affected by considerable violence. In July, Manta mayor Agustín Intriago Quijano was murdered. In early August, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio Valencia, who ran on an anticorruption platform, was assassinated while leaving a rally in Quito. Men claiming to be part of Los Lobos, a major criminal organization, said they were responsible for Villavicencio’s murder. No candidate won a majority in the first round held in August. In the October runoff, Daniel Noboa Azín was elected president, defeating Citizens’ Revolution candidate Luisa González Alcívar. Noboa is expected to serve until May 2025, when Lasso’s term would have ended, but can seek reelection.

Ecuador has a 137-seat unicameral National Assembly, with 116 members directly elected, 15 elected by proportional representation, and 6 elected through multiseat constituencies for Ecuadorians living abroad. Members may serve a maximum of two four-year terms.

Legislative polls were held in August 2023, but issues with the telematic voting system used by Ecuadorians abroad prompted electoral authorities to repeat those polls in October. No party won a majority in the snap elections. As of October, Citizens’ Revolution, formed by former president Correa and his allies, secured 51 seats. The Build Ecuador Movement (MCE) of Villavicencio, who was assassinated in August, won 26. The Social Christian Party (PSC) won 18. National Democratic Action (ADN), which backed Noboa in his presidential campaign, won 14. No other party won more than 10 seats. Several members shifted allegiances by the time the new legislature met in November, leaving Citizens’ Revolution with 51 members, the MCE and the SCP with 18 each, and the ADN with 17. While violence marred the elections, domestic and international electoral observers concluded they were credible and fair.

Since all sitting National Electoral Council (CNE) members were selected and began their six-year terms in 2018, the CNE has displayed transparency and independence. In October 2023, however, Organization of American States (OAS) electoral observers noted that the variation in electoral processes at the provincial level constitutes a “technical weakness.” Local stakeholders also expressed dissatisfaction with the division of responsibilities within the CNE’s plenary body and at the provincial level.

According to the 2008 constitution, political organizations must collect voters’ signatures equivalent to 1.5 percent of the electoral roll to register and participate in general elections. If a party or group fails to win 4 percent of the vote for two consecutive elections, its registration can be revoked, disadvantaging smaller parties.

Ecuador’s legal framework creates opportunities for political organizations to opportunistically delay and challenge the registration of rival candidates, especially in the context of early elections. OAS observers noted that this delayed the registration of a candidate to replace Villavicencio.

For decades, Ecuador’s political parties have been largely personality based, clientelist, and fragile, though smaller establishment parties and newer groups have gained representation in recent years.

Since 2017, opposition parties have dominated the legislature. Correa’s Citizens’ Revolution remains the single largest and best organized political force in the country, consistently holding a plurality of seats and expanding its legislative contingent in the 2023 elections.

Ecuadorians’ political choices are increasingly constrained by criminal groups and violence. During the June–August 2023 campaign season, a legislative candidate, a local party leader, a mayor, a local councilor, and a presidential candidate were all murdered in the context of surging organized crime. In their August report, OAS observers noted that persistent electoral violence generated widespread fear among voters and forced candidates to curtail campaigning. They also reported that candidates and local mayors sought police protection as the campaign progressed, though the National Police did not have the resources to meet this demand.

In the coastal provinces of Guayas, Santa Elena, Manabí, and Esmeraldas, criminal groups increasingly engage in illicit campaign-finance activity. Criminal actors have maintained a dialogue with politicians or otherwise targeted them; in December 2023, Attorney General Salazar presented evidence that Intriago, the late mayor of Manta, communicated with an associate of drug trafficker Leandro Norero Tigua, who was himself killed in a prison riot in 2022. In addition, Norero allegedly ordered surveillance on Villavicencio.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 due to a surge in violence, including the August assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio Valencia, as well as concerns about illicit campaign financing by organized crime groups.

Ecuador’s constitution promotes nondiscrimination and provides for the adoption of affirmative action measures. In practice, however, Indigenous groups often lack a voice in key decisions pertaining to their land and resources. In the 2023 legislative elections, Indigenous-affiliated parties saw their share of seats in the National Assembly decrease, though not because of any formal barriers to participation.

Elected officials face increasing interference from nonstate criminal actors, impeding their ability to set policy. Organized crime groups routinely intimidate, bribe, and attack government officials, and their activity has weakened state control of institutions. Durán mayor Luis Chonillo Breilh, for example, left the country with his family after gunmen attacked his convoy and killed three people in May 2023. Chonillo returned but did not use Durán’s city hall, while his relatives remained abroad.

Hostility between the legislature and executive has persisted, impeding government efforts to make and implement policies.

Ecuador has long been racked by corruption, and the weak judiciary and lack of investigative capacity in government oversight agencies contribute to an environment of impunity. In March 2023, former president Lenín Moreno Garcés was charged with bribery for allegedly receiving funds from a Chinese company building a hydroelectric plant; Moreno was vice president under Correa during part of the period in question.

Lasso also faced accusations of corruption in 2023, with opposition legislators alleging that Lasso was aware of and tolerated an embezzlement scheme at a state-owned firm. Legislators impeached Lasso over these accusations in May, with Lasso dissolving the legislature and triggering early elections in response.

The law guarantees citizens’ right to access public information. Although compliance has improved over the years, some government bodies remain reluctant to disclose such information. Public procurement processes are frequently opaque and malpractice involving government contracts is common.

While state-run media had shown bias towards former president Correa, his immediate successor, Moreno, presided over a relatively freer media environment. The restrictive Organic Communications Law was amended during the Moreno administration, which permitted more diverse coverage in state-run outlets.

Nonetheless, challenges to press freedom remain. Members of the media face harassment and attacks, increasingly from criminal groups, which are often met with impunity. Between January and September 2023, five journalists fled Ecuador after receiving death threats, some of which were issued by officials. Villavicencio, the presidential candidate killed in August, was a practicing investigative journalist at the time of his death. Ecuadorian journalists have attested to the existence of “zones of silence,” where outlets refrain from covering local politics due to pressure from criminal groups.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because members of the press are increasingly targeted with threats and violence amid the country’s ongoing security crisis, preventing reporters from covering certain topics and causing many journalists to self-censor or leave the country.

Freedom of religion is constitutionally guaranteed and generally respected in practice.

There is academic freedom and the education system is free from political indoctrination.

Discussion of controversial topics among private citizens is generally free, but criminal groups intimidate voters, community leaders, and activists in certain parts of the country.

Protests occur regularly throughout the country without incident. However, national security legislation provides a broad definition of sabotage and terrorism, extending to acts against persons and property by unarmed individuals. Protests in 2022 were met with a violent state response, though no comparable events occurred in 2023.

Current regulations for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), although less restrictive than under Correa, still allow authorities to close organizations perceived to be participating in politics, or organizations deemed to perform activities different from those for which they were created.

Private-sector labor unions have the right to strike, though the labor code limits public-sector strikes. Only a small portion of the general workforce is unionized, partly because many people work in the informal sector.

Ecuador’s highest-ranking judicial bodies are the 21-member National Court of Justice and the 9-member Constitutional Court. The passage of a 2018 referendum restructured the National Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS), a powerful body responsible for appointing the attorney general and the Judiciary Council, which appoints judges. The transitional CPCCS controversially influenced the composition of the Constitutional Court, despite its lack of jurisdiction. The transitional CPCCS voted to remove all nine members of the Constitutional Court, citing corruption and a lack of independence; its decisions were later ratified by the new Constitutional Court members.

The Constitutional Court subsequently earned a reputation for autonomy, repeatedly demonstrating a willingness to challenge sitting governments. In October 2023, it voted to remove CPCCS president Alembert Vera Rivera, who was aligned with Correa. Vera had moved without legal basis to create a citizen’s council to provide “oversight” on the decisions of the transitional CPCCS.

Lower courts are perceived to be increasingly unwilling or unable to apply the law to members of drug trafficking organizations. Several trafficking suspects and criminal leaders sought or received habeas corpus rulings. The police and attorney general’s office have objected to the widespread abuse of writs of habeas corpus by lower court judges, who faced pressure to release and absolve traffickers and criminal leaders. In December 2023, Attorney General Salazar announced the early results of a sweeping investigation into alleged co-optation of state officials, including judges, by criminal groups; the investigation began after Norero, the drug trafficker, was killed in prison in 2022. At least 29 people were arrested, 10 of them former and current judges. Judiciary Council president Terán, who was one of those arrested, said the government’s move was arbitrary.

Judicial processes remain slow, and procedures designed to expedite cases have been implemented at the detriment of defendants’ due process rights. Many people are held in pretrial detention for longer than is permitted by law. While the number of public defenders has increased in recent years, the state is still unable to provide adequate legal counsel for all defendants who are unable to supply their own.

Despite improvements in the post-Correa era, reports of due process infringements, including trial delays and “improper pressure” on the judiciary, continued during the Moreno and Lasso administrations.

Crime has become an acute concern in Ecuador, with 45 homicides per 100,000 people being recorded in 2023; that figure stood at 13.7 in 2021 and 25.9 in 2022. Rival criminal groups have fought for control of the lucrative drug trade in recent years. One of the country’s major groups, Los Lobos, maintains significant ties to criminal organizations abroad. Reports in 2023 suggest that Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang, is also active in parts of Ecuador. Criminal organizations employ extreme violence against their targets, engage in increasingly widespread extortion, and have infiltrated police forces. In May, then president Lasso signed a decree allowing the army to be deployed against criminal groups, a month after such organizations were labeled terrorists by the Public and State Security Council.

Prisons are overcrowded and understaffed. Some 31,000 people were imprisoned as of November 2023, 35 percent of whom were in pretrial detention according to the World Prison Brief. Gang- and drug-related violence is rampant, and major security incidents regularly occur in prisons. In late July 2023, soldiers stormed a prison in Guayaquil after members of several criminal groups engaged in protracted fighting. As many as 31 people were killed in that incident. In response, the government declared a 60-day state of emergency in the country’s prisons. That same month, the GK City news outlet reported that over 500 inmates were killed in 14 separate incidents since February 2021. In late August 2023, four car bombs were detonated in two parts of Ecuador—including one outside the offices of the national prison authority—and over 50 law enforcement officers in several prisons were taken hostage by criminal groups.

Candidates and elected officials were subjected to violence in 2023. Durán mayor Chonillo was attacked by gunmen in May, while Manta mayor Intriago was murdered in July. A government-provided security detail conspicuously failed to protect presidential candidate Villavicencio, who was assassinated in August. In October, seven key suspects in the Villavicencio murder were killed in jail under mysterious circumstances.

Allegations of police abuse of suspects and detainees are common. Reports of excessive use of force by police persist, despite a 2022 law regulating the use of force.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 because the prevalence of violent crime continued to rise during the year, contributing to a dramatic increase in the homicide rate and a deterioration of basic security for both government officials and ordinary citizens.

Indigenous people suffer widespread societal discrimination, and oil-drilling and mining projects on Indigenous lands are frequently carried out without consulting local Indigenous communities, as required by the constitution. In 2020, the Constitutional Court reinforced consultation requirements for proposed changes to the status of Indigenous ancestral territories. In a positive step, the Constitutional Court granted a longstanding request to hold a referendum on ending new oil exploration in the Yasuní National Park. The referendum, held in August 2023, passed with ample support.

Ecuador is one of the largest recipients of refugees in Latin America. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ecuador hosted 475,000 Venezuelans as of December 2023. Many Venezuelan immigrants have reported facing discrimination and xenophobia. Thousands of Colombian refugees who came to Ecuador in the 1990s remain.

Freedom of movement outside and inside the country is largely unrestricted. Workers in the palm oil industry, however, have faced restrictions on their movement imposed by employers, including curfews. Individuals may generally determine their place of employment and education.

The government does not impose significant restrictions on the right to own property and establish private businesses. However, corruption can obstruct business activity, and extortion by criminal groups is a major threat to property rights.

In 2019, the Constitutional Court narrowly ruled that the marriage ban on same-sex couples was unconstitutional, based on a previous opinion by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that recommended the recognition of same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples successfully applied for marriage licenses in the following months. Civil unions had previously been recognized in Ecuador.

Ecuador faces significant ongoing challenges in protecting women from violence and abuse. A study from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses found that 65 percent of Ecuadorian women had suffered abuse in some form during their lives. Ecuadorian NGOs reported that 238 femicides had occurred in the first nine months of 2023, a marked increase over 2022.

Abortion remains a crime in Ecuador, with few exceptions.

Adults and children are sometimes subjected to forced labor and sex work in Ecuador; Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian individuals, as well as migrants and refugees, remain most vulnerable.

The government has taken some action to address the problem of economic exploitation, including by increasing trafficking-related law enforcement operations. However, services for victims are inadequate, and some public officials believed to be complicit in trafficking operations have escaped punishment.