Salvador-Style Emergency Powers On Track for Noboa’s Ecuador

Fresh off his unexpectedly strong election win, Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa, sworn in Saturday, is seeking to cement his authority with a crime bill that would give his government emergency powers of the kind used in El Salvador.

The law is intended to rein in the drug and extortion gangs that have overrun the country, and would allow searches without warrants, preemptive pardoning of police and soldiers accused of human rights violations and expand the use of pretrial detention.