Surprise win for Lasso in Ecuador poll
QUITO: Ecuadorian banker Guillermo Lasso unexpectedly won the nation’s presidency on promises to revive an economy battered by coronavirus as his rival’s vows of a return to socialist largesse failed to win over a sceptical electorate.
Lasso took 52% of the vote in the runoff following a campaign that pitted freemarket economics against the social welfare plans of economist Andres Arauz, a win likely helped by a ballotspoiling campaign that left one in six ballots void.
The 65yearold presidentelect will now have to find ways to kickstart a stalled economy while using the same promarket playbook as President Lenin Moreno, who shored up government finances but struggled to create jobs and did not seek reelection.
‘‘A third of Ecuadorians live in poverty, and just three in 10 have access to employment,’’ Lasso said at a campaign rally last week.
‘‘These are two objectives that should bring 100% of Ecuadorian political leaders to dialogue.’’
Lasso’s third campaign for the presidency centred on bringing in foreign investment to create jobs and on expanding investments in the agricultural sector.
It differed sharply from Arauz’s promises of handing out cash to a million poor families and returning the country to the social welfare programmes of former president Rafael Correa, his mentor.
Lasso may have benefited from a protest campaign by indigenous leader Yaku Perez, who called on supporters to vote null in protest of what he called voter fraud in the first round in February.
Farleft candidate Pedro Castillo will face conservative Keiko Fujimori in a June runoff of Peru’s presidential election, according to a fast count by pollster Ipsos of more than twothirds of votes cast in yesterday’s election.
Castillo, a 51yearold union leader and primary school teacher, secured 18.6% of the votes, while 14.5% went to Fujimori, the daughter of imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori, the tally of 69.1% of the vote showed.
The outcome, if confirmed by official results, will do little to calm market jitters over the future leadership of the world’s secondlargest copper producer. — Reuters