Former banker Lasso elected Ecuador president
QUITO: Former banker Guillermo Lasso won Ecuador’s presidential election Sunday, pledging “opportunities and prosperity” despite a pandemic battered and debt-laden economy and a political system riven by gridlock. Conservative Lasso declared himself president-elect after his socialist opponent Andres Arauz conceded.
With 93 percent of votes counted, the 65-yearold held a lead of almost five percentage points over economist Arauz. “On May 24 we will assume with responsibility the challenge of changing our country’s destiny and achieving for all Ecuador the opportunities and prosperity we all yearn for,” said Lasso, a seasoned politician who has finished second in presidential votes twice before. Economist Arauz, best known as the protege of former president Rafael Correa, was magnanimous despite earlier claiming victory following a tight exit poll. “I congratulate him on his electoral triumph today and I will show him our democratic convictions,” said Arauz.
Lasso had 52.51 percent of the vote compared with Arauz’s 47.49 percent, with 93.14 percent of votes counted, the National Electoral Council said. The director-general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, congratulated Lasso on the win, saying he hoped they could work together in “strengthening democracy, human rights, security and development.”
Both Uruguay President Luis Lacalle Pou and Luis Abinader, president of the Dominican Republic, said on Twitter they had called Lasso to offer their congratulations. “I am sure that we are both going to work for the economic recovery of our peoples and the generation of jobs for our fellow citizens,” Abinader wrote.
Voting is obligatory, and opinion polls had the rivals neck and neck heading into the election, as oilrich Ecuador’s 13.1 million registered voters picked a successor to the deeply unpopular Lenin Moreno. The campaign in the South American country was dominated by an economic crisis aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. —AFP