In affluent parts of the city, shop owners peppered window fronts with life-sized cardboard cutouts of the president in a tank top and shorts, or dressed-down with arms crossed.
His campaign finale will take place in a 13,000-capacity Quito bull ring late Thursday.
“He’s going to end the robberies, the narcotrafficking,” said 64-year-old wheelchair-bound Noboa supporter Angelica Andrade.
Gonzalez’s campaign has focused on her coastal strongholds, and on mopping up votes in poorer neighborhoods where her political mentor, exiled ex-president Rafael Correa made his name.
During a final rally in the country’s largest city Guayaquil she ripped Noboa as an out-of-touch and vain “cardboard man” whose cash-strapped administration has neglected public services while issuing “declarations of war”.
“There can be no peace without social justice, no peace without medicines in hospitals,” she told supporters while flanked on stage by rifle-wielding special forces in full combat armor.
Most polls show Noboa with a consistent lead over Gonzalez. But he shocked pollsters by winning a snap election in 2023, and another upset is possible.
Each candidate will have to get 50 percent of Sunday’s vote, or ten percent more than their nearest competitor to avoid an April second-round runoff.
© 2025 AFP
