Former Banker Lasso Wins Ecuador’s Presidential Election

Former banker Guillermo Lasso won Ecuador’s presidential election on Sunday after his socialist opponent Andres Arauz conceded.

According to the National Electoral Council said Lasso had 52.51 percent of the vote compared to Arauz’s 47.49 percent with 93.14 percent of votes counted.

Earlier, television stations Ecuavisa and Teleamazonas published the results of the Cedatos exit poll that gave Lasso almost a 6.5 percentage point lead over Arauz.

Lasso, aged 65, is a third-time presidential candidate having finished second to former president Correa in 2013 and Moreno in 2017.

Voting is obligatory, and opinion polls had the rivals neck and neck heading into the election for Ecuador’s 13.1 million registered voters to pick a successor to the deeply unpopular Lenin Moreno.

Arauz, is virtually unknown but topped February’s first round of voting on the back of support from his mentor, Correa, who led the country from 2007-2017.

Arauz, the candidate from the Union of Hope coalition, topped the first round with almost 33 percent of the vote, 13 percentage points ahead of Lasso, from the Creating Opportunities movement.

Lasso will take over from beleaguered Moreno on May 24 and will immediately face an economic crisis exasperated by a 7.8 percent contraction in GDP in 2020.

At the same time, the country has been hard-hit by the pandemic, with hospitals overwhelmed by more than 340,000 coronavirus infections and more than 17,000 deaths.