Ecuador judge orders pre-trial detention of leftist presidential candidate
Luisa Gonzalez, who lost to right-wing president Daniel Noboa in 2023, has called the arrest political persecution.
A judge in Ecuador has ordered that former left-wing presidential candidate Luisa Gonzalez remain detained following her arrest for alleged money laundering.
The order on Friday came the day after 48-year-old Gonzalez, who challenged right-wing President Daniel Noboa in the 2023 election, was arrested in the rural town of Canuto.
Gonzalez, her party and her close ally, former President Rafael Correa, have called the arrest political persecution.
Several other members of Gonzalez’s Citizen Revolution (RC) party have also recently faced charges.
They include Guayaquil Mayor Aquiles Alvarez, convicted of illegally selling subsidised fuel and former Vice President Jorge Glas, serving a sentence for corruption.
Prosecutors have said that Gonzalez is one of seven people under investigation for financing the 2023 presidential campaign. The probe focuses on $500,000 poured into advertising during the race.
Gonzalez has denied wrongdoing, dismissing the charges as “absurd”.
Citizen Revolution President Gabriela Rivadeneira told a news conference on Thursday that Gonzalez’s arrest “confirms or makes visible what we have been saying lately: Ecuador is living under a dictatorship”.
Gonzalez, a lawyer and former member of Ecuador’s National Assembly, lost to Noboa in an April 2025 run-off. She rejected the result as fraudulent.
Noboa, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, later accused Citizen Revolution of conspiring to attack him.
The party has since been banned from running in local elections next month.
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