Marcelo Xavier Hervas Mora (born 7 October 1972) is an Ecuadorian businessman and politician who unsuccessfully ran for President of Ecuador in the 2023 election. He previously ran for president in the 2021 election as the Democratic Left nominee, being eliminated in the first round. Hervas was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He is president of the company NovaAlimentos SA. Hervas was also president of the engineering faculty at the

University of La Sabana The Universidad de La Sabana is a private university in Colombia, supervised by the Colombian Ministry of Education. It was founded on September 21, 1979 by the Asociación para la Enseñanza Aspaen, its predecessor was the INSE "Instituto Su ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. He is also a shareholder of the Metropolitan Hospital in

Quito Quito (; qu, Kitu), formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital and largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its urban area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is located in a valley o ...

, one of the country's largest hospitals. His 2021 presidential campaign was popular on social media such as TikTok for his progressive stance on legalizing abortion,

marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...

and LGBTQ+ related issues. After being eliminated in the first round, he endorsed Guillermo Lasso in the run-off. After Lasso assumed the presidency, he became one of his strongest critics. In March 2022, President Lasso accused Hervas of blackmailing him in exchange for tax favors, a claim that Hervas denounced. In June 2023, Hervas officially became a presidential candidate for the 2023 election and was endorsed by the

RETO Movement The RETO Movement (; short for '','' RETO) is an Ecuadorian political party. It was founded by former Azuay Prefect Paúl Carrasco in 2018. Though it is composed by multiple partisan coalitions, it is mainly centre-right while also maintainin ...

. He was eliminated in the first round of the presidential election, receiving 0.49% of the vote.

References

1972 births Living people Ecuadorian businesspeople People from Guayaquil Academic staff of the University of La Sabana {{Ecuador-business-bio-stub