Ecuadorians protest Daniel Noboa’s far-right agenda in Quito, July 2024. Photo courtesy Popular Unity

Two years ago, the Ecuadorian people showed the world what meaningful climate action looks like, voting by a huge margin to restrict oil and gas drilling in Yasuní National Park, a 10,000 square-kilometre protected area considered one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. As I wrote at the time, the decision represented a huge step in the direction climate policy desperately needs to go: restricting the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.

Earlier this month, the Ecuadorian people showed once again what it means to stand up for a better future by voting overwhelmingly to reject their government’s push to allow US military bases in their country. And they voted this way despite Ecuador’s radical far-right turn under President Daniel Noboa.

Noboa, the Miami-born son of Álvaro Noboa, the richest person in Ecuador, won the presidency in 2023 in the same election that held the Yasuní referendum, though by a much slimmer margin. The two years since have been devastating for Ecuador. Noboa declared a state of emergency early in his presidency and imposed long-term martial law justified on the grounds of combatting crime and violence. He has also implemented a classic neoliberal austerity program, slashing public investment and dismantling regulations to serve the interests of business elites and transnational lenders.

Noboa has justified this draconian transformation on the basis of security concerns: Ecuador has gone from being one of the safest countries in Latin America to one of the most dangerous in just a few years. But his policies have done nothing to reverse the trend.

The simultaneous rise of violent crime and the far-right in Ecuador is paradigmatic of what looks like a new US-led approach to politics in the region. It’s a kind of “strategy of tension”—create social unrest and insecurity by backing violent organized crime in the form of cartels,........

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