Ecuadorians to pick new president
Voters endure strict pandemic measures
QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuadorians voted for a new president Sunday facing unprecedented health measures due to the coronavirus pandemic and the influence of a populist former head of state who was blocked from a place on the ballot due to a corruption conviction.
Sixteen candidates were vying to succeed President Lenín Moreno, a protege-turned-rival of former President Rafael Correa, who governed Ecuador for a decade and remains a major force despite a criminal conviction that blocked him from seeking the vice presidency this year.
The frontrunners were considered a Correa-backed candidate, Andrés Arauz, and a conservative former banker who finished second twice before, Guillermo Lasso. Indigenous rights and environmental activist Yaku Pérez trailed them in third place in pre-election polls.
To avoid an April 11 runoff, a candidate needed to get 50 percent of the votes or finish with at least 40 percent while being 10 percentage points ahead of the second-place candidate.
Voters were ordered to wear masks, bring their own bottle of hand sanitizer and pencil, keep a 5-foot distance from others and avoid all personal contact in the polling places. The only time voters were allowed to lower their masks was during the identification process.
Long lines formed at polling places, especially in big cities, where some voters had to wait hours to cast their ballots.
“I don’t care who wins the elections. We are used to thinking that the messiah is coming to solve our lives and no candidate has solved anything for me,” said one voter, Ramiro Loza. “During the quarantine, my income was reduced by 80 percent, and the politicians did not feed me.”
The winning candidate will have to work to pull the oil-producing nation out of a deepening economic crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The South American country of 17 million people recorded more than 253,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 15,000 deaths related to COVID-19 as of Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University in the United States.