Ecuador kicked off its presidential campaign Tuesday amid a looming economic crisis, a lingering corruption scandal and a thirst for change that analysts say may hamper President Rafael Correa\u2019s hopes of putting a successor into power to continue his \u201cCitizens Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Len\u00edn Moreno, Correa\u2019s handpicked candidate and one-time vice president, is leading polls ahead of the Feb. 19 race against a divided opposition. However, if he doesn\u2019t win in the first round with at least 40 percent of the vote and a 10-point lead over his nearest rival, he\u2019ll be forced into an April 2 runoff that could be tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has to put all its meat on the grill for this first round,\u201d said Sebastian Hurtado with the Quito-based political analysis group Profitas. If the opposition rallies behind a single candidate in the second round, \u201c it will be much more difficult,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With South America shifting to the right in 2016 \u2014 sidelining leftist leaders in Brazil and Argentina \u2014 many are looking to Ecuador\u2019s vote to see whether the trend continues. But the Andean nation, best known for the Galapagos Islands and being one of the world\u2019s largest banana exporters, isn\u2019t easy to define politically.<\/p>\n
Read More: Ecuador\u2019s chief of \u2018good living\u2019 tries to raise national happiness<\/p>\n
For the last decade, Correa, a charismatic, U.S.-trained economist with a penchant for bashing Washington and winning elections, has held sway over almost every branch of government. And despite his authoritarian streak, he\u2019s been praised for making the nation more inclusive and revitalizing the country\u2019s infrastructure: building hospitals, roads and schools that are the envy of the region.<\/p>\n
Mild-mannered Moreno, 63, who has used a wheelchair since a botched robbery in 1998, is running on a platform of continuing his boss\u2019 policies. And, so far, the promise is working.<\/p>\n
Leading in polls<\/p>\n
A Dec. 27 poll by the Quito-based firm Cedatos had Moreno leading with 35.6 percent of the vote, followed by former banker and center-right candidate Guillermo Lasso, with 22.3 percent. Former Congresswoman Cynthia Viteri and the center-left former mayor of Quito, Paco Moncayo, followed with 10.9 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n
But even as the status-quo candidate is leading, the country is hungry for something new, said Cedatos President Angel Polibio Cordoba. A full 87 percent of those surveyed said they wanted change, including 70 percent who asked for \u201cdramatic\u201d change.<\/p>\n
In some ways, Moreno is in a race against time. As oil prices have tanked, the administration has been able to hold off a deeper economic crisis by taking on more debt and loans against future oil exports. It\u2019s racked up almost $14 billion in debt in 2016 alone, said Jose Hidalgo, with the conservative economic think-tank CORDES.<\/p>\n
That has allowed the administration to keep from cutting popular social programs or laying off public-sector workers in this critical election year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government\u2019s strategy is working for Len\u00edn Moreno, because there\u2019s the sense that the [economic] crisis isn\u2019t something people are feeling in their pockets yet \u2014 it\u2019s only something analysts talk about,\u201d Hidalgo said.<\/p>\n
But the next president is going to have to make some unpopular moves \u2014 slash the budget, increase taxes or renegotiate the external debt \u2014 in order to keep the administration viable, he warned.<\/p>\n
Scandals<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the cloud of corruption. Last year, news broke that at least eight current and former officials were wanted on charges of bribery and money laundering for their role in manipulating contracts with the state-run Petroecuador oil company.<\/p>\n
At the time, the company was under the purview of Moreno\u2019s running-mate and current Vice President Jorge Glas. President Correa has acknowledged that corruption might be an issue, but has said that the charges against Glas are part of an international smear campaign.<\/p>\n
In addition, last month, representatives of the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht pleaded guilty in U.S. courts to paying millions of dollars in bribes for contracts in almost a dozen countries, including $33.5 million in Ecuador.<\/p>\n
Correa has said the Odebrecht case is being used to try to skew the elections.<\/p>\n
But corruption is on voters\u2019 minds. The Cedatos poll from last month found voters\u2019 top three concerns were unemployment, the economic crisis and corruption.<\/p>\n
In a letter to clients Tuesday, the New York-based Eurasia group said the corruption charges could be a game-changer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile neither Glas nor Correa has been directly implicated to date, the news will increase popular perceptions of government corruption and make it all the more difficult for Moreno to distance himself from Correa during the campaign,\u201d the group said, predicting that Lasso will win during the runoff.<\/p>\n
Cordoba, the pollster, said much could still change. A full 47 percent of the electorate claim they\u2019re undecided. Many voters, he speculated, are waiting to see who might emerge during the next seven weeks of campaigning to become the opposition banner-holder.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the 28 campaigns I\u2019ve followed over the years,\u201d he said, \u201cthis is one of the highest levels of undecided voters we\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: LatinAmerican Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ecuador kicked off its presidential campaign Tuesday amid a looming economic crisis, a lingering corruption scandal and a thirst for change that analysts say may hamper President Rafael Correa\u2019s hopes of putting a successor into power to continue his \u201cCitizens Revolution.\u201d Len\u00edn Moreno, Correa\u2019s handpicked candidate and one-time vice president, is leading polls ahead of the Feb. 19 race against… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}