Elections in Ecuador: Arauz will go on waivers with …

The candidate correista Andrés Arauz won Sunday’s presidential elections in Ecuador with a 32.22 percent of valid votes, when the count of the minutes of the polling stations reached 96.81%. This percentage is not sufficient to avoid the second electoral round.

The name of who will go on waivers with Arauz must be clarified in the coming days during the final review because at the moment there is a technical draw between the banker and the right-wing candidate Guillermo Lasso (19.65%), who started out as a favorite to go to the second round, and the native environmentalist Yaku Pérez (19.71%).

It’s a very small number of votes to decide who will go to a second round. The final tally will take a few more days and the vote of just over 410,000 Ecuadorians living abroad would still be counted.

In the wake of the tie, Pérez questioned the results in Guayaquil this morning and called for a new tally. “We participated in this electoral process demanding transparency, but despite the fact that the rapid count of the CNE (National Electoral Council) gave us the second place, they are approaching and it seems the intention is to overthrow us and us. leave in third place, ”he said in a statement to the headquarters of the movement he leads, Pachakutik, in Quito.

Pérez called on his supporters and voters to “be vigilant” and to mobilize so that “your will is not disappointed, your will is respected”, suggesting that the electorate or a political power seeks to modify the results.

Arauz: “It’s a resounding victory”

Andrés Arauz highlighted the victory he obtained in the first round and He was convinced he would win the second round it doesn’t matter who comes second. However, he admitted that he would like a clearer electoral battle, facing his most antagonistic rival, namely Lasso.

“We are sure that the victory in the second round can give us even more legitimacy this in the first place, because we will be able to exceed the threshold of 50%, and rather approach the 60% ”, he declared in an interview with the agency Efe shortly after the first results were known.

Fragmented voting

Ecuadorian law requires a second round when the winner does not obtain an absolute majority or at least 40 percent of the valid votes with a difference of 10 points compared to the second candidate.

The fragmentation of the vote is due to the unprecedented number of candidates who ran in Sunday’s elections, 16 presidential formulas. In fourth place, Xavier Hervás, from the democratic left, with 16.01% of the vote.

The other twelve candidates, all from the start with no real possibility of going to the second round, share control: Pedro José Freile, 2.15%; Isidro Romero, 1.82%; former president Lucio Gutierrez, 1.76%; Gerson Almeida, 1.69%; and the only aspiring woman, Ximena Peña, 1.53%.

Seven other candidates obtained less than 1% of the exam.