Daniel Noboa spends very little time in the media. His public speeches are usually short and concise, he is not one of those who gives away extra words. The reality is that he does not seem to feel very comfortable giving statements, in fact his campaign focused on sending messages through social networks, without intermediaries. That is why it was surprising this week that a profile-interview about him appeared in the American magazine The New Yorker, written by journalist Jon Lee Anderson. The president of Ecuador, the 36-year-old son of a rich man, demonstrates in the article that he has some extravagant ideas that make his advisors uncomfortable, but what has drawn the most attention has been his opinions on other presidents in the region, some with whom he seemed to get along well, like Nayib Bukele.
For example, he says in the text that he feels most aligned with the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, a surprising statement. The Chilean Gabriel Boric, in his opinion, “seems to be fine,” although his far-left associates have paralyzed him. He describes Gustavo Petro as a “left-wing snob,” accustomed to giving lectures instead of engaging in conversations. “He is intelligent, but he can’t do anything,” he adds. Anderson writes that the one he thinks the worst is the Argentine Javier Milei: “I don’t know why he thinks he’s so great. He has accomplished nothing since he became president. He seems very cocky, which is very Argentinian, actually.”
However, it is the words he dedicates to Bukele that are the most striking. They told the journalist that Noboa did not like comparisons with the Salvadoran, and that is probably why he insisted. “The guy is arrogant,” Noboa says of Bukele, “and he only seeks to control power for himself and to make his family rich.” There were a handful of families that owned everything “and now there are the Bukeles.” When Anderson provokes him by reminding him that Bukele has defined himself as the “coolest dictator in the world,” the Ecuadorian president responds in a mocking tone: “Yes, it is a country the size of Guayas (an Ecuadorian province).”
The Government of Ecuador has recognized this Tuesday that they were the ones who offered the story to The New Yorker to demonstrate how all human rights were being complied with in the midst of a state of emergency, the measure that Noboa decreed to confront the Ecuadorian gangs with the army. , which were uncontrolled and managed part of the institutions. “The conversations that took place between the president and the journalist were in a colloquial tone, absolutely colloquial and private, in that sense, anything the president said, especially about presidents, is decontextualized,” explained the Secretary of Communication of the Presidency of Ecuador, Irene Vélez.
Vélez has insisted that these phrases “do not represent at all what the president thinks of his counterparts” and has accused the New York magazine of wanting to generate controversy. The Ecuadorian official has defended that her president maintains good relations with Bukele and Milei. At no time has she referred to Petro. The part about the presidents is the controversy of Jon Lee’s report, but there are other striking ones that have gone more unnoticed. The text begins with Noboa telling him about the plot by some Colombian hitmen to assassinate him that the Ecuadorian authorities aborted. Until now nothing was known about this fact, if it has existed, nor are any further details known. Later, Noboa says that he would like to send prisoners to Antarctica and is corrected by an advisor, who clarifies that those lands can only be used for research. If the Government’s purpose was to show positive reporting on its president, it seems that it has not achieved it.
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