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Bloomberg
Polls are open in Ecuador in an election that will decide whether the country turns its back on the US and restores an alliance with socialist regimes in Cuba and Venezuela.
The result of Sunday’s voting has the potential to upend relations with Beijing or Washington, and could even jeopardise Ecuador’s continued use of the US dollar.
Long lines formed at some polling stations in the capital Quito, as measures to reduce the risk of Covid-19 infection slowed the pace of voting.
Voters face a stark choice between embracing painful economic change or harking back to a prior era of fiscal largesse. There are 16 candidates, but polls suggest it’s a neck-and-neck race between Guillermo Lasso, a conservative banker and self-made millionaire and Andres Arauz, a socialist economist.
The campaign for control of Ecuador, an oil exporter and world-leading producer of bananas, shrimp, and the balsa wood crucial for wind-turbine rotors, has become a battleground of international interests.
Arauz, who was handpicked by former President Rafael Correa, has drawn support from leftist Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina. Lasso campaigned to boost investment and private sector hiring. President Lenin Moreno, who was formerly Correa’s deputy, narrowly beat out Lasso in 2017.