ECUADOR: RAFAEL CORREA AND ALVARO NOBOA ADVANCE TO SECOND ROUND OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.
Leftist economist Rafael Correa will face off against business magnate Alvaro Noboa in a second round of presidential elections after an Oct. 15 first round eliminated eleven other candidates. The vote count, according to Ecuadoran newspapers, was the worst handled in decades, with the Brazilian company contracted to conduct the vote count failing to deliver on its commitment to provide a quick tally. The Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE), the country's top electoral authority, canceled its contract with the company and began an investigation of it. As of Oct. 18, a final result was still unavailable, although Noboa's and Correa's margins of victory were wide enough to guarantee that they would move to the runoff set for Nov. 26.
Noboa becomes surprise frontrunner
Banana magnate Noboa, Ecuador's richest businessman, surprised pollsters and election watchers when the vote count showed him with a lead of three to four percentage points. Opinion surveys prior to the election had shown him trailing Correa and other candidates like Leon Roldos and Cynthia Viteri, although later polls showed him rallying. This is Noboa's third presidential campaign.
As of Oct. 18, with 87.66% of the votes counted, the TSE announced that Noboa had won 26.30% of the valid votes. Correa trailed Noboa by three points with 23.16% of the valid votes. The count at that point covered 32,018 of 36,313 polling stations and was progressing slowly.
Gilmar Gutierrez, brother of ousted President Lucio Gutierrez (2003-2005), of the Partido Sociedad Patriotica (PSP) had won 17.27% of the vote, another surprise when compared with pre-election polling, which did not count Gutierrez among the top four candidates.
Leon Roldos of the Izquierda Democratica (ID) came in fourth with 15.27% of the vote, and Cynthia Viteri of the Partido Social Cristiano (PSC) followed with 9.61%.
Indigenous leader Luis Macas of the Pachakutik party ran sixth with 2.23% of the votes, while the remaining candidates (see NotiSur, 2006-09-15) each won less than 2%. Voter absenteeism reached 29%.
The election also covered 100 Congress members along with municipal and provincial authorities, although the results of those races were not yet available. TSE spokesperson Patricio Torres said the body could have a complete count of all votes by Oct. 24.
For a presidential candidate to have won in the first round, he or she would have needed to win a simple majority of 50% or 40% of the vote and held a 10% lead against the nearest competing candidate.
Correa rose to lead in the polls in the days preceding the vote, with one survey by polling firm Cedatos showing him with 37% support, although the number of undecided voters was massive in every poll, usually outnumbering the front-runner's levels of popularity. Fellow leftist Roldos had showed a small lead earlier in September, but his numbers fell as Correa's campaign got into full swing.
Opinion polling, however, faced significant limits under Ecuador's electoral law, since after Sept. 25 it was prohibited to publish survey results within the country until after the election.
Upcoming campaign predicted to be vicious
The result of the Oct. 15 vote pits a pro-US billionaire and a leftist economist who admires Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in a campaign, argue analysts, that threatens to...
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