Ecuadoreans are headed for a runoff presidential election following a vote Sunday in which a leftist economist drew the most votes, but not enough to secure an outright victory.
The economist Andrés Arauz, outpolled a conservative rival, Guillermo Lasso, and an Indigenous environmental activist, Yaku Pérez, according to the preliminary figures released by Ecuador’s electoral council after the polls closed. But Mr. Lasso And Mr. Pérez were in a virtual tie.
“Whoever wins will find it very difficult to govern,” said John Polga-Hecimovich, a Latin American politics expert at the United States Naval Academy. “They will need to reconcile the need to address social grievances with fiscal reality.”
Voters, battered by a deep recession and a pandemic that hit Ecuador early and hard, agreed.
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