Ecuador to Hold Election Runoff After Socialist Wins First Round
Stephan Kueffner
Sun, February 7, 2021
(Bloomberg) -- A socialist economist feared by bond investors won the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election, and will face either an environmentalist or a wealthy banker in a runoff after an unexpected fight for second place.
Andres Arauz, who rejects austerity measures and attacked Ecuador’s deal last year with the International Monetary Fund, got 31.5% of votes cast, according to the quick count published by the electoral authority late on Sunday.
The race for second place is still too close to call. In the fast count, Yaku Perez, from the indigenous party Pachakutik, got 20.04%, giving him a wafer-thin lead over the conservative Guillermo Lasso, who got 19.97%.
Perez opposes mining projects and wants to renegotiate Ecuador’s debt, while Lasso backed the IMF deal and wants the country to have warm relations with Washington. The result confounded polls, which mostly predicted that Lasso would comfortably make the second round.
Once the final vote has been tallied, either Perez or Lasso will face Arauz in the second round, scheduled for April 11.
Arauz’s strong showing means that the nation’s dollar bonds “will definitely be weaker on Monday,” said Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America fixed income strategy at Amherst Pierpont in New York.
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, 36, is a protege of exiled former leader Rafael Correa, who allied the country with the socialist governments of Venezuela and Cuba and who often had an acrimonious relationship with Washington.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Stephan Kueffner
Sun, February 7, 2021
(Bloomberg) -- A socialist economist feared by bond investors won the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election, and will face either an environmentalist or a wealthy banker in a runoff after an unexpected fight for second place.
Andres Arauz, who rejects austerity measures and attacked Ecuador’s deal last year with the International Monetary Fund, got 31.5% of votes cast, according to the quick count published by the electoral authority late on Sunday.
The race for second place is still too close to call. In the fast count, Yaku Perez, from the indigenous party Pachakutik, got 20.04%, giving him a wafer-thin lead over the conservative Guillermo Lasso, who got 19.97%.
Perez opposes mining projects and wants to renegotiate Ecuador’s debt, while Lasso backed the IMF deal and wants the country to have warm relations with Washington. The result confounded polls, which mostly predicted that Lasso would comfortably make the second round.
Once the final vote has been tallied, either Perez or Lasso will face Arauz in the second round, scheduled for April 11.
Arauz’s strong showing means that the nation’s dollar bonds “will definitely be weaker on Monday,” said Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America fixed income strategy at Amherst Pierpont in New York.
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, 36, is a protege of exiled former leader Rafael Correa, who allied the country with the socialist governments of Venezuela and Cuba and who often had an acrimonious relationship with Washington.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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