Sawt Falasteen - Ecuador presidential candidates sprint to campaign finish

Incumbent President Daniel Noboa and his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez crisscrossed their equator-hugging Andean nation, holding final rallies ahead of a midnight deadline to halt campaigning.

"We are surviving, not living," said 56-year-old Quito street vendor Jesus Chavez, summing up widespread discontent over insecurity and an anemic post-pandemic economic recovery.

Ecuador, once a beacon of prosperity, stability and democracy in a troubled region, now finds itself enmeshed in a bloody turf war between rival international cartels and mafias.

A litany of groups are vying for control of lucrative trafficking routes that link the clandestine coca plantations of Colombia and Peru to the nightclubs in Europe, Australia and the United States -- via Ecuador's Pacific ports.

The country's murder rate has increased more than 400 percent -- albeit from a low base. But that has been enough to scare off tourists and to prompt tens of thousands of Ecuadorans to flee overseas.

"There are cruel deaths, assassinations, crimes, it is a daily reality," said Chavez, who has been robbed multiple times during his hour-long commute to and from Quito's picturesque colonial heart.

- 'Declarations of war' -

Almost 14 million Ecuadorans are obliged to vote in Sunday's election.

In all, more than a dozen candidates will appear on the ballot.

Most are polling close to zero, so the real race appears to be between Noboa, the photogenic scion of a banana empire, and Gonzalez, a tattooed single mother and heir to Ecuador's powerful leftist movement.

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.

She has laid the blame for some of the bloodshed on Noboa's hawkish security policies, which have seen the military take over prisons, borders closed and a state of emergency declared.

"It's urgent that we change the country, not with declarations of war, which aren't going to lead anywhere, but by constructing peace," Gonzalez told Radio Morena as part of a Thursday media blitz.

Noboa, 37, has staked his political fortunes on a hardline "mano duro" policy of tackling criminal gangs head on, and on his youthful "Action Man" image.

On the campaign trail, he has strode shirt-unbuttoned shoulder-to-shoulder with heavily armed soldiers, and donned a bulletproof vest while leading spectacular ready-for-TV security operations.

In the volcano-ringed capital Quito Friday, his campaign trucks ploughed major thoroughfares blasting salsa tributes to the young president, with lyrics heralding his ability to bring prosperity and tackle corruption.

A few passersby swayed their hips in support.

In affluent parts of the city, shop owners placed life sized cardboard cutouts of Noboa in windowfronts -- the president rendered in shorts or dressed-down with arms crossed to underscore his vitality.

Most polls show him with a consistent lead over Gonzalez, but he shocked pollsters by winning a snap election in 2023.

And his lead may not be enough to avoid an April second-round runoff.

F.AbuShamala--SF-PST