TODAY—Noboa’s administration has arrested his former presidential opponent, Luisa González. She is the fifth member of Revolución Ciudadana jailed. Other imprisoned opposition figures, including the nation’s former Vice President, bear signs of torture and starvation. Luisa’s supporters gathered this morning to denounce her arrest, chanting “Down with the dictatorship.” Former Colombian President Gustavo Petro also condemned it as a dictatorship. Luisa’s party, Noboa’s largest opposition force, has been banned from elections. Guillaume Long, senior diplomatic adviser to the Hague Group and a former Ecuadorian foreign minister, told me for Drop Site that the arrest is “an exercise in intimidation” and a bid to tilt the upcoming local elections in favor of Noboa’s party, which he says had poor prospects before. “Every time a leader is arrested… paraded in high security jails in orange jumpsuits and with shaved heads, this sends a chilling effect in the ranks of the political opposition,” Long added. The November vote is critical to consolidating the U.S.-backed regime’s grip on power as joint ground operations with U.S. Southern Command, the first of their kind in the region, continue to escalate.