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1 [1] (April 20, 2017)

handle is hein.crs/govceyv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: FF.ri E~$~ & p\w -- , gnom go mppm qq\ , q I aS 11LIANJILiN, Updated April 20, 2017 Ecuador's 2017 Elections On April 2, 2017, governing party candidate Lenfn Voltaire Moreno narrowly won a runoff election in Ecuador with a margin of slightly more than 2% of the vote, according to Ecuador's National Electoral Council (CNE). Reporting after 100% of the vote was counted, CNE announced that Moreno received 51.15% and opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso received 48.85% of the votes cast. Lasso, who had come in second in the first-round vote on February 19 (see Figure 1), gained the backing of an array of opposition parties. A former banker, Lasso posed his campaign as a movement for change following a decade of rule under the Alianza Patria Altiva y Soberana (PAIS, or AP) party. Moreno and his vice presidential candidate Jorge Glas are slated to take office on May 24, 2017. Figure I. Presidential Election and Runoff Results Source: Data from CNE. Graphic created by CRS. The 2017 elections were the first in a decade in which Rafael Correa did not run for president, but his two former vice presidents both ran. Presidential candidate Moreno served as vice president under Correa from 2007 to 2013, and Glas was Correa's most recent vice president until he left office to become Moreno's running mate. Moreno campaigned on continuing the work of the leftist Correa government, with a better balance between public and private interests. Although popular through much of his decade in office, by October 2016, President Correa's approval rating had slipped to 41% and support for his political agenda, which he called the Citizens' Revolution, had declined. This factor could explain, in part, why the election outcomes remained so close. Correa, a fiery leftist populist, forged close ties with former Venezuelan President Hugo Ch6vez. In contrast, Moreno has expressed more commitment to tolerance of critical or dissenting viewpoints and free expression. Correa, however, received broad support due to the political stability he brought to the country and his successful efforts to reduce inequality using oil profits, a commodity that makes up more than 50% of Ecuador's exports, and to modernize the country's infrastructure, such as roads. Correa's anti-imperialist rhetoric, which rejected the influence of the United States, and what Correa's critics viewed as his antidemocratic policies, led to a deterioration in relations between the United States and Ecuador. In the pre-electoral stage of the presidential race, Moreno polled in first place most often while he faced a field of candidates ranging from right to far left. He came close to winning the first round with the needed 40% of the vote. Moreno is regarded as more affable and easygoing than President Correa, and Moreno worked for years as a disability advocate. Moreno was shot during a robbery years ago and is disabled. He continued his advocacy after leaving the Correa government by serving as the U.N. Special Adviser on Disability and Accessibility based in New York. Jorge Glas, on the other hand, turned out to be an unpopular running mate. Not only is Glas seen as much closer to Correa, but some observers indicated he was likely to assume the presidency if Moreno decided to step down for possible health reasons. Following his victory in April, Moreno held a press conference to say he was not likely to succumb to health problems and leave the recently won presidential post. Glas was embroiled in a corruption scandal that worsened in December 2016 and is related to the management of Ecuador's state-owned oil company, Petroecuador. In response to the scandal, Moreno vowed during the campaign to make the management of Petroecuador much more transparent. Guillermo Lasso of the Creating Opportunities-Society United for More Action Alliance (CREO-SUMA), who previously ran for president in 2013, was the first declared candidate in the 2017 election cycle. Lasso had been an active critic of the Correa government, staging protests against the 2015 constitutional reforms and laws on inheritance advocated by Correa. Lasso's platform sought to increase liberalization of the economy, and he campaigned for a sustainable-development model that gave primacy to small- and medium-sized industries. He promoted a plan to create 1 million new jobs between 2017 and 2021. He also was a strong advocate for the repeal of the 2013 Communications Law, which has been associated with censoring Ecuador's media but was advocated by the Correa government as a way to reduce elite control of the broadcast media and democratize the medium. Lasso was among several candidates who pushed to reduce the size of the state apparatus overall. During the runoff campaign, the Correa government used its dominance or control of state- owned media to denounce Lasso for his alleged involvement in the financial crisis of the late 1990s and accuse him of personally profiting from that crisis. Morenio La5so PAlS. or AP PREK, Election rebntary, I%217 Runoff ApN12. 2017 .O 'T

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