In Sunday’s election, Mr Noboa won with 52.3% of the vote, ahead of Luisa González’s 47.7%. González accepted defeat and congratulated Noboa.

A 35-year-old member of the National Democratic Action party, he is the son of former presidential candidate Lvaro Noboa.

Until the next election, Mr Noboa will only be in office for 17 months.

Due to the fact that outgoing President Guillermo Lasso dissolved parliament during an impeachment trial, he will govern from November 2023 to May 2025. If he chooses, he can run again for the 2025-29 presidential term.

On 25 November, five days before his 36th birthday, Mr Noboa will be sworn in as president. After winning the second round of voting, Mr Noboa told supporters: “Tomorrow we start working for this new Ecuador, we start rebuilding a country seriously battered by violence, corruption, and hate.”

Recent years have seen an increase in gang violence in Ecuador, and candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated in August. He had campaigned against corruption as a journalist.

As a result of Ecuador’s proximity to Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest cocaine producers, violent crime has also risen dramatically.

Several of Ecuador’s most hardened criminals could be moved to prison ships off its coast in order to break up prison gangs that have been engaging in deadly warfare inside the country’s jails.

In addition, he proposes installing scanners to intercept more cocaine shipments at Ecuador’s borders and ports to disrupt key drug-trafficking routes.

By promising to boost employment opportunities, he has also appealed to voters.