Elections in Ecuador: Guillermo Lasso will be Andrés Arauz’s rival after winning heads-up against Yaku Pérez by just over 30,000 votes

QUITO (AFP) .- After two weeks of doubts, during which the two candidates who were vying for second place in the Elections in Ecuador they were ahead of each other depending on the day, Today, authorities confirmed that the one who will fight with left-wing economist Andrés Arauz is right-winger Guillermo Lasso.

Thus the former banker, from the CREO-PSC coalition, found himself with the illusions of the competing third party, the indigenous leader of the left Yaku Pérez, which emerged as the surprise election and for many could have turned out to be a complicated rival for Arauz.

According to what was confirmed by the newspaper El Universo, the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Friday concluded the parts of the one that remained to be counted and there it obtained the final figures which closed the uncertainty: Arauz, dolphin of the ‘former Socialist President Rafael Correa, obtained 32.72% of the valid votes, which is equivalent to 3,032,906 people who supported him; Lasso, 19.74% (1,829,378); and Pérez, 19.38% (1,796,542).

Now the presidential waiver will take place on April 11, the board announced. The tally was approved by the vote of four of the five electorate present at a meeting, which was reinstated on Saturday and lasted until dawn today.

“I will continue to represent them in this second electoral round”, said Lasso in a statement after the proclamation and added: “Today democracy has triumphed, we are going with courage and optimism to this second round.” The candidate, a 65-year-old conservative, leads the opposition in Correa, who beat him in the 2013 presidential election. This is his third time running for office.

Arauz, the former minister of Correa, failed to win the presidency in the first round as his leader did in 2009 and 2013, for which he needed at least 40% of the vote and ten points difference on his immediate follower.

The delay in announcing the results and the tightening of the vote between Lasso and Pérez, both opposed to each other and to Correismo, led the UN and the OAS to demand “transparency” in the vote count. In this context, the Office of the Comptroller of Ecuador yesterday asked the CNE to allow it to carry out an audit of the electoral computer system to “guarantee transparency, legal security, legitimacy, the adequate use of public resources and contribute to the generation of an environment of trust. “

The winner of the tie will succeed President Lenín Moreno, Former ally of Correa and whose four-year term will end on May 24.

Pérez, a 51-year-old environmental lawyer, argues that a fraud on the right, he dismissed it in the final results after being moved by Lasso from second place in the preliminary exam, for which he unsuccessfully raised a vote recount.

“Three days (of the preliminary examination) we were in second place and on the fourth day they already put us in third place, it is a fraud”, said the indigenous chief in the city of Riobamba yesterday.

Pérez could insist on his request in a phase of contestation that by law the CNE will open upon the promulgation of the results of the presidential election, in which a total of 16 candidates participated.

To defend the vote of Pérez, the candidate of Pachakutik, who was ranked second by a quick count by the CNE on election day and therefore remained in the early days of the slow preliminary examination, indigenous groups held vigils peaceful in front of the headquarters. of the CNE in Quito.

The aboriginal chief insists on being a victim of fraud, which is why the natives on Wednesday launched a “march for democracy” in Loja, in the south and near the border with Peru, with the intention of reaching the capital on Tuesday. Ecuadorian.

“Unfortunately, they are trying to deprive us of our votes,” Pérez said yesterday in front of supporters in a town in the province of Chimborazo (south of the Andes), where the march he is leading has arrived. He added that before the claim to withdraw their votes, “rivers of people, rivers of hearts” will arrive in Quito on Tuesday to say that the vote is forbidden. “Our vote is not stolen. We have to get the votes back, ”he concluded.

THE NATION