ECUADOR: Leftist Rafael Correa appears to have won Ecuador's presidential election by a margin of just over 13 percent

Ecuador's leftist Rafael Correa, an ally of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, appeared to have clinched the presidential run-off election on Sunday (November 26) after exit polls and one quick count showed he surged past his banana magnate rival Alvaro Noboa to victory. An election win by the former finance minister Correa would bolster Chavez's campaign to forge an alliance of left-wing governments to counter U.S. influence and free-trade policies with his own brand of socialist proposals. "Be careful because there could be large irregularities in spite of the quick advantage we have over our opponent," said Correa to supporters in Quito. His rival Noboa, Ecuador's wealthiest man, rejected the poll results and said he could demand a review of the ballots if necessary after official results are released. "All I can say to you is that I have told all my campaign workers throughout Ecuador that they go to the courthouses and demand that the ballot boxes be opened so that the votes can be counted one by one," said Noboa at a hastily arranged news conference. Correa, a U.S.-trained economist who worried Wall Street with talk of debt renegotiation, had positioned himself as an outsider to woo Ecuadoreans frustrated with poverty and years of instability in the world's top banana exporter. A quick count carried out by local election observation group Participacion Cuidadana gave Correa 56.9 percent and Noboa 43.1 percent with 63 percent out of their sample of the ballot boxes nationwide. The count had a margin of error of 1.95 percentage points and was a representative sample of voting results from polling stations nationwide. Three other exit polls showed similar results. Correa, 43, rattled Washington with vows to oppose a U.S. free trade pact and a local U.S. military base. Noboa, a banana magnate, had promised closer U.S. ties and market-friendly policies to draw investment. Troops were deployed around the country and Noboa had to be guided by bodyguards through crowds as he held a Bible before casting his vote at a polling station in Guayaquil. Correa voted in the capital Quito and then arrived to Guayaquil to accompany his elderly mother to the polling station. In second-round campaigning, Correa toned down his aggressive calls to dissolve the discredited Congress and take on Ecuador's political elite, which worried many centrist voters looking for more stability. He had been rewarded with a steady rise in the polls. Noboa, 56, whose family made a fortune from bananas, lured voters with a populist campaign mixing handouts of cash, wheelchairs and computers with religion and offers of jobs and 300,000 houses a year for the poor. The tycoon, who hobnobs with the world's jet set, was on his third run at the presidency and said the experience running businesses ranging from coffee to construction would help him manage the economy. After 1999 debt default crisis and street protests by Indian leaders earlier this year, voters were debating which candidate offered remedies to the political turmoil that has forced out three presidents in the last 10 years. Political analysts said Noboa's Institutional Renewal Party for National Action will manage to forge a majority alliance in Congress after his lawmakers won 28 out of 100 seats in October's legislative election. That could make it difficult for Correa to push through his promised reforms if official results confirm his victory. Correa has no representatives in Congress and an inexperienced political movement. Ecuador's last elected president, former coup leader and soldier Lucio Gutierrez, was toppled in April last year by street protests and lawmakers who charged him with meddling with the independence of the Supreme Court.

ITN Source | November 27, 2006

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