Ecuador’s leftist candidate Lenin Moreno has appeared to have garnered victory – though it is being contested by the former banking and pro-business candidate Guillermo Lasso.
The leftist Lenin Moreno was influenced by his father, who named him after Vladimir Lenin, and managed to secure 51.1 percent of the vote.
As a result, scores of protestors took to the streets waving Ecuador’s flags and chanting “We don’t want to be Venezuela!”
Contrary to this latest election, the example of Venezuela has been having an impact, as South America has been taking a major right turn in their politics. Governments leaning to the right have come to power in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru. Ecuador has resisted the incoming right tide.
“They’ve crossed a line,” Lasso said, warning of potential fraud, “We’re going to defend the will of the Ecuadorean people in the face of this fraud attempt.”
Implications for international transparency were at stake. Lasso threatened to deport Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Having been the victim of a gunshot wound during a robbery, Moreno, a former vice president of Ecuador, has lost the use of his legs and has a record for championing the rights of the disabled, and sought to promote the well-being of the elderly, and single mothers as well. He is now, however, faced with he daunting task of job creation.
Oil-rich Ecuador has been plagued by declining oil prices. Other socialist countries like Venezuela and Libya have been propped up by high oil prices, but when this declined their lack of a properly-diversified economy was deleterious to their prosperity.
“The revolution has triumphed again in Ecuador,” outgoing leftist president Rafael Correa said to a celebratory crowd of supporters.
The crowd chanted for “Lenin President” and broke out into songs, including songs about Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
News credit: Reuters
Photo credit: CIA World Factbook
Brandon Kirby
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