Presidential candidate of the Citizens’ Revolution Luisa González addresses a crowd of supporters on election night in Quito.

Luisa González is contesting the National Electoral Council (CNE) vote count and demanding a recount following Sunday’s presidential election runoff. The presidential candidate of the Citizens’ Revolution addressed supporters who packed the campaign house on Reina Victoria Avenue, in the city of Quito.

She thanked those who support her political project and was energetic in expressing that the Citizens’ Revolution has always recognized defeats at the polls, but not this time, “On behalf of the people we represent we do not recognize the results presented by the CNE”.

“I refuse to believe that there is a people that prefers lies before the truth, violence before peace and unity, I categorically refuse to believe it… we are going to ask for a recount and that the ballot boxes be opened”.

Figures shown on the official website of the CNE positioned González trailing incumbent Daniel Noboa by 11-points, with 96.94% of votes counted—despite that exit polls showed the candidates with a margin of only four points, and at least one widely published exit poll gave González the victory.

At the same time, nearly all voter intention surveys conducted in the weeks leading up to the vote showed González poised to win the runoff.

Her campaign received many key endorsements ahead of the second round, including from the Pachakutik indigenous movement, whose candidate Leonidas Iza came in third in the first round.

Noboa, who’s name has become associated with corruption and narco-trafficking, took drastic measures alongside the CNE authorities in the final days before the contest, including decreeing a state of exception in seven provinces, closing land borders, preventing international observers from entering the country, suspending the vote for Ecuadorians in Venezuela, and relocating polling stations just hours before the vote.

Luisa’s supporters chanted “fraud” and “you are not alone”, during her speech.

The candidate denounced the abuse of power exercised by the current president, who never asked for a license to campaign, and decreed a state of exception, among other irregularities.

“There are about 11 statistical investigations, 11 surveys in which even those of the government itself gave us the victory, the exit poll gave us the victory, then “I denounce before the people, before the world that Ecuador is living a dictatorship and we are facing the worst and most grotesque electoral fraud in the history of the Republic of Ecuador” she expressed with confidence.

The candidate emphasized how little credible is the idea that votes had not increased since the first round of elections in February and called for unity and to be attentive to what happens in the coming hours. “We will continue in the fight” she concluded.

Earlier in the day, left-wing and progressive parties in Ecuador expressed concern over the series of irregularities by the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the government of presidential candidate Daniel Noboa, implemented just hours before the vote.

The Antifascist International Ecuador Chapter and the International Collective of CELAC Social denounced fraud in Sunday’s vote and called for active and organized resistance by Ecuadorians. A statement released by the Executive Secretariat of the Bolivarian Alliance, ALBA-TCP, stated that irregularities in Ecuador’s runoff election suggests “the execution of a clear premeditated electoral fraud.”