Conservative candidate Guillermo Lasso has surprised Ecuador by beating his opposition runner Adres Arauz, while in Peru the far-left Pere Castell has been chosen to advance to a second round of elections in which he will probably be measured with the right .
Lasso’s victory breaks the turn to the left in Latin America experienced in Argentina and Bolivia, a country that also held the second round of elections in four departments over the weekend, which closes a complicated and long process electoral.
LASSO GOES AROUND THE FORECASTS
With 98.50% of the acts scrutinized in Sunday’s presidential election, Lasso has declared himself the winner by adding 52.5% in favor of the electorate, against the candidate of the correísmo, Andrés Arauz , which has obtained 47.50%.
The result gives a null vote of 16.29% an unprecedented percentage in the country and that seems to respond to the factor Yaku Pérez, the former indigenist candidate who asked his supporters for this vote.
Lasso’s clear victory has been a big surprise in Ecuador, after Arauz won in the first round held on February 7, by a difference of almost 13 percentage points.
The political heir of former President Rafael Correa has acknowledged the victory of his opponent whom he has called to congratulate him.
Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno also congratulated him and wished him “the greatest of successes.”
Several Latin American leaders have joined in congratulating the candidate of the conservative alliance CREC-PSC, a former banker who has advocated for “unity” and “dialogue” among all Ecuadorians as a formula for solving the problems that afflict their country, aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Lasso, 65, manages to reach the presidency in his third attempt, turning around the politics of a country that has not seen a right-wing government since before 2003.
“Ecuadorians have opted for a new direction, very different from that of the last fourteen years in Ecuador,” he said from the convention center in Guayaquil, declaring himself the winner of the election.
PERU WILL DECIDE BETWEEN THE FAR LEFT AND THE RIGHT
In Peru, the first advance in the official counting of votes in Sunday’s presidential election confirmed the far-left Pere Castell as the most voted candidate, with a guaranteed place in the second round of elections.
According to these first results, his opponent will be one of the candidates of the right: Hernando de Soto (neoliberal right), the far-right Rafael López Aliaga of Popular Renewal, or the heiress of former President Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori .
Castell, a teacher and leader of a radical faction of the teachers’ union, assured his supporters, after acknowledging the election results, that “change and struggle are just beginning” in Peru and reaffirmed his commitment to establish an alliance with “the same true Peruvian people” to preserve their roots.
His radical and populist discourse raises proposals such as a “socialist state”, a law that “regulates the media” or allocate 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) to education, when the entire public budget of the government it is 14% of GDP.
In this day, in which more than 25.2 million voters were called, a citizen participation of 73.89% was registered.
BOLIVIA CLOSES A COMPLICATED ELECTORAL PROCESS
Bolivians elected the governors of the peace departments of Chuquisaca, Tarija and Pando in a second round on Sunday, the last cycle of a challenging electoral calendar in Bolivia after the 2019 political and social crisis and in the midst of the pandemic of the coronavirus.
The four departments have by law until next Sunday to announce the official results and it is expected that on May 3 the new authorities of the regional and municipal governments of Bolivia will take office.
The elections were repeated because no candidate got more than 50% of the vote or more than 40% with 10 points difference over the second most voted candidate in the regional and municipal elections on March 7.