Lenin Moreno Ahead in Ecuador Presidential Elections
HAVANA TIMES – The governing party candidate, Lenin Moreno, is close to becoming the new Ecuadorian president, according to preliminary data released by the National Electoral Council (CNE) with 94.18 percent of the votes counted today, dpa reported.
The CNE indicated that 51.07 percent of valid votes correspond to Moreno and 48.93 so far to the conservative Guillermo Lasso. In proclaiming these results the CNE did not officially award the victory to Moreno.
“Today the country decided at the polls,” announced Council President Juan Pablo Pozo, who praised “the democratic decision of the people at the polls,” noting that citizens “spoke in peace.”
“There has not been a gift of a single vote here,” Pozo said of the CNE’s scrutiny work.
The electoral body indicated that the number of votes reached thus far by Moreno is 4,823,513 and that of Guillermo Lasso is 4,621,654, a difference of around 200,000 votes.
For his part, Lasso said tonight in statements to local television that he does not accept the results and that he will contest them.
For its part, the private NGO Citizen Participation announced the investigation of a quick count, which did not yield results, but its president Ruth Hidalgo said there was “a technical tie” with a difference of 0.6 percent.
“We have completely accurate data. We won the elections!”Moreno told a crowd of supporters gathered at a hotel in the capital, where he followed the course of the scrutiny.
After the polls closed, the pollsters showed opposite results from the exit polls, which gave triumphs to the two contenders.
After the CNE pronouncement, Moreno said that in his government he will increase the “quality and warmth in all programs” and said that tonight he made a “responsible commitment” with all Ecuadorians.
Hundreds of sympathizers from each political faction were separated by the Police outside the CNE headquarters in Quito, in a vigil to guard the votes.
and it will be just a matter of time–a shorter time, rather than a longer one–when lefty governments will again be elected in Brazil and Argentina; neoliberalism offers no palatable solutions to the working and middle classes, only bondage and exploitation. Likewise, due to current difficulties, the left may be voted out in Venezuela; nevertheless, I have confidence they will eventually be voted back in (or, if the right forecloses the voting option, then reinstated by revolution). Meanwhile, here in the States the right to vote is foreclosed by a thousand nefarious techniques: picture voter I.D. requirements, cutting the number of voting machines or poll workers in minority and working-class districts, prohibiting anyone who has ever been convicted of a felony of voting, purging the voting rolls of anyone even with a similar name to those felons mentioned above, etc. etc., not to mention making it difficult for minor parties and independents to gain a place on the ballot. Voting is almost as restricted as during the first thirty years of our so-called republic, when there were property and wealth restrictions (not to mention racial and gender restrictions) on the right to vote or run for office)!
This is another great leap forward. The People have taken a stand for social democracy and democratic socialism again, rejecting the lame promises of the right wing. It’s another Great Day for Ecuador. The interests of the common people prevailed once again. God bless Ecuador. Forward Ever! Backward Never!