Daniel Noboa was nowhere to be seen. And, yet, he was everywhere.

On balconies. In the arms of various supporters. In the back of a truck. Cardboard cutouts of Mr. Noboa, Ecuador’s president, were ubiquitous at an election rally in a suburb of Quito, the capital, on Wednesday, as they are in many parts of the country.

They even appear in different outfits — a suit and presidential sash, a T-shirt and jeans, a tank top and gym shorts.

The posters are part of the president’s successful communication strategy ahead of Sunday’s election: short on specific policy proposals but strong on mastery of social media and viral trends to project an image of youth and vigor to Ecuador’s voters, the majority of whom are younger than 44.

Supporters and detractors alike have even taken to saying, “The cardboard is going to win.”

Mr. Noboa, 37, took office just 15 months ago, after his predecessor called for early elections amid the threat of impeachment over embezzlement accusations.

In his short term, he has faced a slew of national and international controversies, an energy crisis, a feud with his vice president, persistent drug-related violence and unemployment.

He has also been criticized by opponents and analysts for what they describe as strongman tendencies, including abusing his presidential powers in the name of combating violence and corruption.

And, yet, polls show, Mr. Noboa, a center-right politician, is the leading candidate in Sunday’s election, and could win enough votes to avoid a runoff.

His popularity, experts say, is buoyed by his branding as a hip and forceful leader, as well as by his truncated term — many voters don’t blame him for the country’s ills and say he needs more time.

His main opponent is Luisa González, a leftist establishment candidate handpicked by a powerful former president, Rafael Correa, who served from 2007 to 2017. She has drawn support from Mr. Correa’s base of voters, who are eager to return to the prosperity and low homicide rates during his tenure.

But it also hurts her among other Ecuadoreans who remember Mr. Correa’s repressive tactics and corruption scandals. Many Noboa supporters put it simply: Ms. González represents the past, while Mr. Noboa represents the future.

Mr. Noboa’s party, which was created less than a year ago, is predicted to win about a third of the seats in the legislature — the same as Mr. Correa’s party.

For years Ecuador has been defined by Mr. Correa’s movement, but some say Mr. Noboa has the potential to create a political force of his own.

This is the first time since the Correa years that Ecuador has seen a relatively popular president seeking re-election, and it “creates the possibility for a type of political stability that Ecuador hasn’t seen really since Correa left office,” said Risa Grais-Targow, the Latin America director for Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Ecuadorean presidential elections typically feature two rounds of voting, with the two top candidates in the first round facing off in the second. To win the first round outright, a candidate must win more than 50 percent of the votes, or win 40 percent of the votes with a 10-point margin over the nearest rival.

Just five years ago, Mr. Noboa was a political unknown. After one term as a legislator, he rose unexpectedly from the bottom of the polls to a second-place finish in the first round of presidential elections in 2023, helped, in part, by a strong debate performance.

Mr. Noboa, a Harvard Kennedy School graduate, comes from one of Ecuador’s wealthiest families. His father, Álvaro Noboa, who owns an economic empire that includes Bonita Bananas, also ran for president five times, unsuccessfully.

The younger man has been leading the country of nearly 18 million through a particularly bloody period.

Over the past five years, the drug-trafficking industry has expanded in Ecuador, drawing in international criminal groups, unleashing violence in the once-peaceful nation and sending tens of thousands of migrants fleeing to the United States.

Two months after taking office, Mr. Noboa declared a state of internal armed conflict after several prison riots and an on-air siege of a TV station.

The drastic step, which allowed the military to patrol prisons and streets, was seen as a turning point. Some Ecuadoreans felt the measure was necessary to crack down on gang violence, while others worried it threatened civil liberties.

The move initially brought down violence in cities like Guayaquil, but the sense of safety did not last. January saw more violent deaths than any month in the past three years, according to police data.

In April, Mr. Noboa dispatched police officers to the Mexican Embassy to arrest a politician who had taken refuge there to escape a prison sentence for corruption. Experts called the action a violation of international law on the sanctity of diplomatic missions, and the arrest drew global condemnation.

But in Ecuador, the moves boosted Mr. Noboa’s image as a tough-on-crime leader, and Ecuadoreans endorsed his hard-line approach later that month, when they approved a referendum enshrining the increased military presence into law and lengthening prison terms for certain offenses linked to organized crime.

“I think he is authoritarian,” said Cristina Guevara, 45, who cares full time for her disabled son. “But we want him to win because it is the only solution that there is going to be right now.”

Still, Mr. Noboa’s approach has been polarizing, and his approval ratings have been carved in half.

Many blamed his harsh strategy for the disappearance in December of four children who were forced into a military patrol car after they were seen playing soccer in the western province of Guayas. Their charred remains were found weeks later, and the case set off outrage and protests against the military.

A judge ordered the detention of 16 military members involved in the disappearance.

When it comes to his plans for the country, Mr. Noboa has provided little in the way of concrete promises, instead speaking vaguely about throwing “the old Ecuador” in the trash.

His success has been in creating a “character,” said Caroline Ávila, an Ecuadorean political analyst. “This character still does not tell the voter what country he wants to give you.”

Verónica Díaz, the national coordinator of Mr. Noboa’s party, said one of his top plans was to change the Constitution to lift a ban on foreign military bases.

Mr. Correa instituted the ban in 2008, pushing out a U.S. military presence that critics say was crucial for fighting international criminal groups.

Mr. Noboa is also openly feuding with his vice president, Verónica Abad, a right-wing business coach. Ecuadorean law requires presidents to cede their duties to the vice president while campaigning, but Mr. Noboa has refused to do so, citing an electoral law that he claimed allowed him to govern and campaign at the same time.

The constitutional court rejected that claim on Monday, so Mr. Noboa stopped officially campaigning.

Experts say some of Mr. Noboa’s actions are an overreach of executive authority that could be seen as authoritarian.

“He’s tended to push the limit in terms of both international and domestic constitutional norms,” said Ms. Grais-Targow. “But it’s always been done with the banner of security measures or transparency, which I think has helped to contain the political fallout for him.”

His supporters see him as a fearless leader willing to make bold decisions for the sake of the country.

But Ledy Zúñiga, a former justice minister who is running for the National Assembly with Ms. González’s party, said weakening the country’s democratic norms only makes it harder to address the country’s violence.

“As long as the institutional framework of the security system is not strengthened, it is very difficult,” she said.

Mr. Noboa is also one of the few leaders in Latin America who seem to be on good terms with President Trump. He attended his inauguration and has accepted deportation flights.

Mr. Noboa’s decision not to actively campaign, following the court’s ruling, makes for an unusual scene on the trail.

On Wednesday, the plaza in suburban Quito was packed with thousands of people waiting to hear him speak. Because of the court’s decision, he never did.

So he ate lunch in a food market while chatting with local vendors. Spectators quickly surrounded him, standing on chairs, snapping selfies and chanting campaign slogans.

“It was exciting because no president has ever come to this market before,” said Soledad Medina, 60, who sold the president juice. “He is very young and he is intelligent and would like our Ecuador to change. What we need is a change.”

José María León Cabrera contributed reporting.

President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, made plainly clear how a Latin American nation — considered a U.S. adversary — will help the president deliver on a promise that carried him to the White House.

Mr. Homan expected flights carrying Venezuelan migrants in the United States back to Venezuela to begin “within the next 30 days,” he said in an interview with The New York Times.

It was the first indication of a timeline for the plan to send people back to Venezuela after Mr. Trump’s announcement that his government had struck a deal with the country’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Last week, the Trump administration said that it had secured the freedom of six Americans in Venezuelan custody and convinced Mr. Maduro to receive deportation flights that would carry “all Venezuela illegal aliens” living in the United States.

In return, Mr. Maduro, who is accused of stealing a recent election and committing major human rights violations, received a very public visit from a top Trump adviser, Richard Grenell.

The two shook hands, smiling, as Venezuela’s top legislator, Jorge Rodríguez, beamed in the background. Later, Mr. Maduro’s government released an announcement affirming its commitment to “dialogue among equals.”

Just days after the meeting with Mr. Grenell, Mr. Maduro proposed implementing a loan program for returning migrants that would have an initial budget of $10 million.

For Mr. Maduro, who is increasingly isolated on the global stage, the Grenell meeting was a major win. U.S. diplomats left Venezuela in 2019. Since then, there have been only a few, very private meetings between United States and Venezuelan officials.

The Venezuelan government has not yet confirmed that it will take deportees. But if the deal goes through, it has the potential to mark a significant shift in the U.S.-Venezuela relationship.

During the first Trump administration, Mr. Trump did everything he could to try to oust Mr. Maduro, issuing crushing economic sanctions, throwing his weight behind an opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, and even placing a $15 million bounty on Mr. Maduro’s head, accusing him of narco-terrorism.

As a growing number of Venezuelans fled to the United States, the Venezuelan government in turn refused to take deportation flights.

Now, the dynamic has changed. Mr. Trump needs Mr. Maduro to accomplish one of his signature campaign pledges: deporting hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who have arrived on U.S. soil in recent years.

And it seems that Mr. Maduro knows that, and it’s not the only advantage he holds.

At least five other Americans and two foreigners with U.S. residency status remain in detention in Venezuela, according to the human rights group Foro Penal, giving the Venezuelan government significant leverage over the Trump administration.

Further U.S. policy changes could involve the lifting of sanctions on Venezuela’s vital oil sector and the return of direct commercial flights between the United States and Caracas.

Such moves are likely to anger the Venezuelan opposition led by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, the man widely believed to have won a July presidential vote. Ms. Machado has argued that Mr. Maduro is weak and that global leaders should continue a policy of isolation to push him out.

Any actions by the United States seen as beneficial to Venezuela could also put Mr. Trump and Mr. Grenell, who is Mr. Trump’s envoy for special missions, at odds with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has long argued for a more hard-line approach against Mr. Maduro, and in 2022, he even said that deporting Venezuelans back home would be a “very real death sentence.”

In his interview with The Times, Mr. Homan, the border czar, said that deportation flights to Venezuela were likely to take off soon.

“It’s going to happen within the next 30 days, and I can’t tell you how many — we’re still working on all those details,” he said.

“It’s huge. It’s a great thing that President Trump got,” Mr. Homan added. His hope is that there is a regular cadence of deportation flights.

“I don’t think President Trump is going to accept anything less,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans live in the United States, many with short-term protections that Mr. Trump has recently revoked, making them vulnerable to deportation in the coming months.

Under Mr. Maduro’s leadership, the country has experienced one of the worst economic and humanitarian crises in recent history, spurring roughly eight million people to flee in the last decade. Initially, most went to other countries in Latin America. But since the pandemic, many have gone to the United States, often trudging thousands of miles on foot and by bus to get to the southern border.

At the end of his first term, Mr. Trump shielded vulnerable Venezuelans from deportation, saying it was too dangerous for many of them to return.

Since then, the economic situation in Venezuela has not improved to any significant degree, while the political situation in the country has only worsened, with Mr. Maduro rounding up those he considers political opponents — and sometimes mere bystanders — following the contested election.

His government, however, has argued that conditions have improved, paving the way for people to be sent home.

“There is no factual basis to say that Venezuela is in better shape,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, a Venezuela expert at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “This is a political decision.”

In an interview, Juan González, who served as President Biden’s top adviser on Latin America, said that for years, U.S. policy toward Venezuela has been hamstrung by hard-liners in Florida who criticize any kind of dialogue with Mr. Maduro, asserting that isolation was the route to restoring Venezuelan democracy.

Mr. González said he thought that Mr. Grenell, in his role as liaison to Venezuela, might be opting for a more realistic approach, focused on achieving U.S. national security goals — at first, that might include getting Mr. Maduro to accept deportees, but it could also include other U.S. priorities, like pushing Venezuela away from China.

And if that was the case, Mr. González, a Democrat, supported Mr. Grenell’s efforts.

“I don’t agree with Ric Grenell on a whole lot,” he said. “But I’m rooting for him. In the Rubio-Grenell competition, I think he’s really the best option.”

President Trump on Friday ordered that all foreign assistance to South Africa be halted and said his administration would prioritize the resettling of white, “Afrikaner refugees” into the United States because of what he called actions by the country’s government that “racially disfavored landowners.”

In the order, Mr. Trump said that “the United States shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa” and that American officials should do everything possible to help “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”

It follows Mr. Trump’s accusation on his social media site on Sunday that the South African government was engaged in a “massive Human Rights VIOLATION, at a minimum.” He vowed a full investigation and promised to cut off aid.

“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” the president wrote in the post. “It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t want to so much as mention.”

The order was stunning in providing official American backing to long-held conspiracy theories about the mistreatment of white South Africans in the post-apartheid era.

Mr. Trump has made repeated claims without evidence that echoed those conspiracy theories. In 2018, he ordered his secretary of state to look into “the large scale killing of farmers” — a claim disputed by official figures and the country’s biggest farmers’ group.

Mr. Trump’s recent comments were in reference to a policy that President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa signed into law last month.

The law, known as the Expropriation Act, repeals an apartheid-era law and allows the government in certain instances to acquire privately held land in the public interest without paying compensation — something that can be done only after a justification process subject to judicial review.

The order from Mr. Trump came a day after Mr. Ramaphosa delivered his State of the Nation address with a defiance that appeared to be a reference to the American president’s accusations.

“We will not be bullied,” he said. The South African leader vowed to stand united in the face of what he called “the rise of nationalism and protectionism.”

“We will speak with one voice in defense of our national interest, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy,” he said.

In addition to the halt in foreign aid, Mr. Trump ordered officials to provide “humanitarian” assistance to Afrikaners and to allow members of the white South African minority to seek refuge in the United States through the American refugee program.

Since the transition to democracy in 1994, the South African government has taken a willing-seller approach to try to transfer the ownership of more land to the country’s Black majority. The new law, with limited exceptions to that approach, came as many Black South Africans have argued that Nelson Mandela and other leaders did not do enough to force the white minority to give up wealth that had been accrued during apartheid.

South Africa’s colonial regimes were particularly brutal in dispossessing Black people of their land and forcefully removing them. Despite the efforts of postcolonial governments, the result remains clear to this day: White South Africans, who make up 7 percent of the population, own farmland that covers the majority of the country’s territory.

In an earlier executive order, Mr. Trump had demanded a three-month pause in the United States’ refugee program, blocking the admission of desperate people fleeing war, economic strife, natural disasters or political persecution. Friday’s order appeared to make white South Africans an exception to the broader halt.

While it is not clear whether he had an influence on the president’s order, Elon Musk, the billionaire who has become a close adviser to the president, is from South Africa. In 2023, Mr. Musk posted similar far-right conspiracy claims about South Africa on X, the social media platform he owns.

“They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa,” Mr. Musk wrote.

Mr. Ramaphosa and Mr. Musk spoke by phone after that social media post, with the South African president trying to clarify what his administration has called “misinformation” peddled by Mr. Trump.

In much of South Africa, Mr. Trump’s attacks in recent days inspired a rare bit of political unity, with leftist, centrist and even some far-right activists all saying that the American president’s characterization of the land transfer law was wrong.

His comments amplified a long-held grievance among some white South Africans who claim they have been discriminated against by the Black-led government after apartheid. But Mr. Trump’s comments also angered many South Africans, who saw the law as a necessary means of redressing historical injustice.

Since 1994, when South Africa became a democracy, the country has enjoyed a close relationship with the United States. Barack Obama visited there several times during his presidency, including when he attended the memorial service for Mr. Mandela, who had been imprisoned for 27 years before becoming the country’s president.

But Mr. Trump’s actions on Friday made it clear that he does not view the relationship in the same way.

South Africa received more than $400 million in aid from the United States in 2023, almost all of which went to funding efforts to fight H.I.V. and AIDS. The government has said that American funding makes up about 17 percent of its budget for battling H.I.V.

Far-right white Afrikaners applauded Mr. Trump’s attacks on South Africa’s government in recent days.

Ernst Roets, the executive director of the Afrikaner Foundation, which lobbies for international support of the interests of Afrikaners, said that while the government was not seizing land, it was trying to create a legal and policy framework to be able to do so.

The expropriation law opens the door to abuse, Mr. Roets said, because the government “can justify a lot of things under the banner of public interest.” But even Mr. Roets and his group had not called on Mr. Trump to broadly cut aid to South Africa, instead seeking targeted actions against government leaders.

After Mr. Trump first commented about land confiscation, the South African government tried to broker a conversation between its foreign minister and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, according to Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States. But the Trump administration did not respond, he said.