Arauz Claims Win In Ecuador Presidential Election, Polls Unclear

Quito, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Apr, 2021 ) :Socialist newcomer Andres Arauz claimed victory in Sunday's Ecuador presidential election despite one exit poll indicating his conservative opponent Guillermo Lasso would win.

"We have an exit poll and we've won," said Arauz, who is best known as the protege of former president Rafael Correa.

"Obviously this victory needs to be ratified in the official results, which will happen very soon," he added, claiming to have won by 1.6 percent.

However, television stations Ecuavisa and Teleamazonas revealed that an exit poll by Cedatos gave Lasso victory by 53.24 percent to 46.76 percent.

The two stations added that the Clima Social pollster had the rivals in a technical draw and was thus not revealing its numbers.

Arauz's campaign team claimed Clima Social had the 36-year-old winning by 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent.

"Thank you Ecuador! This is a victory for the Ecuadoran people. We ask our delegates to take care of every one of our votes. No one will prevent the course of history," Arauz said on Twitter.

Lasso has yet to comment since polls closed at 5:00 pm (2200 GMT) but just beforehand he wrote on Twitter: "It's been a great democratic day. We are vigilant to take care of every vote.

"Thank you to all those who went out to vote for their families. The Ecuador of this match is for the 17 million Ecuadorans." - 'Social division' - Voting is obligatory, and opinion polls had the rivals neck and neck heading into the election for oil-rich Ecuador's 13.1 million registered voters to pick a successor to the deeply unpopular Lenin Moreno.

The campaign in the South American country of winding Pacific coast, and Andean highlands that plunge to tropical pre-Amazon basin lowlands, had been dominated by an economic crisis aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Economist 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.

He didn't vote on Sunday because he is still registered in Mexico where he was studying for a doctorate before deciding to run in the election.

Ex-banker Lasso, 65, is a seasoned politician and third-time presidential candidate after having twice finished second: to Correa in 2013 and Lenin Moreno in 2017.

Many experts billed the election as a battle of "Correism versus anti-Correism" in a country bitterly divided along political lines.

"This social division, that the campaign highlighted, means that the vote to reject Correa effectively goes to Lasso," said Pablo Romero, an analyst at Salesiana University.

Correa would have been Arauz's running mate but for an eight-year conviction for corruption.

He lives in exile in Belgium, where his wife was born, avoiding his prison sentence. But his influence on Ecuadoran politics remains strong.

"If Arauz wins, Correa-style politics will continue. If Lasso wins, we will immediately end all that ... which has been a terrible situation for years," Judith Viteri, 41, who works in a chemist, told AFP after voting.

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

- 'Permanent tension' - Whoever wins 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.

Overall debt is almost $64 billion -- 63 percent of GDP -- of which $45 billion (45 percent of GDP) is external debt.

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

"There's a feeling that to a certain extent, it doesn't matter who wins, we just need an immediate change," said Romero.

Should Lasso win, he would face a tough job with Arauz's leftist coalition the largest party in parliament.

"There will be permanent tension with the executive. There's almost no chance of the reforms the country needs," said Romero.

Lasso scraped into the runoff by less than half a percentage point ahead of indigenous candidate Yaku Perez, who contested the result and claimed to have been the victim of fraud.

Socialist Perez, whose Pachakutik indigenous movement is the second-largest bloc in the legislature, picked up around 20 percent of the vote in the first round.

Pachakutik refused to back either candidate in the second round.