This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-39020912

The article has changed 12 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 8 Version 9
Ecuador election: Ruling party's Lenin Moreno leads knife-edge vote Ecuador poll: Governing party's Lenin Moreno leads vote
(about 4 hours later)
Partial official results in Ecuador's presidential election have put ruling party candidate Lenin Moreno in the lead - but he may face a run-off. Partial official results in Ecuador's presidential election have put governing party candidate Lenin Moreno in the lead.
Left-wing incumbent Rafael Correa is standing down after leading the South American nation for a decade. With 87.2% of the votes counted, he has 39.09%, just short of the 40% needed to win outright in the first round.
Mr Moreno has just less than 39% of the vote with conservative Guillermo Lasso on almost 29%, based on 82% of returns. If he fails to reach 40%, he will face conservative candidate Guillermo Lasso in a run-off on 2 April.
To avoid April's run-off, a candidate needs 40% and a 10-point lead over their nearest rival. Third-placed candidate Cynthia Viteri said she would support Mr Lasso in the case of a second round.
Mr Moreno, a key figure in Mr Correa's cabinet between 2007 and 2013, had been predicted to win the vote. Polls conducted before the election suggested that Mr Lasso could win a second round if he got the backing of candidates eliminated in round one.
Mr Moreno has declared himself the winner without waiting for the official results. Mr Moreno needs to both win 40% of the vote and have a 10-percentage-point lead over the next candidate to stave off a second round.
"This revolution nobody can stop," he was quoted as saying by Associated Press. He currently has a 10.8-percentage-point lead but not the 40% of the vote.
Meanwhile, Mr Lasso's supporters gathered outside the National Electoral Council, saying the run-off was unavoidable. Final results are expected later on Monday.
Centre-right figure Mr Lasso is a former banker who wants to create a million jobs. Why does it matter?
Among his pledges is one to withdraw asylum rights from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since June 2012. After 10 years in power and three election wins, incumbent left-wing President Correa was not running again, so change at the top was inevitable.
Mr Moreno, who became paraplegic after being shot in the back in 1998 and has most recently served as UN special envoy on disability and accessibility, has tried to distance himself from Mr Correa in recent years. But a defeat for Mr Moreno, who has the backing of Mr Correa and his party, would signal a swing to the right after a decade of left-wing policies and could have implications not just for Ecuador but the region.
Mr Correa, who was elected in 2007 and is unable to stand again, oversaw an economic boom during his 10 years in power. When Mr Correa was first elected in 2007, he was one of a group of left-wing leaders in power in Latin America, including Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Cuba's Raul Castro, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
But a slump in the price of oil meant the oil-exporting country was unable to continue supporting its poverty reduction programmes, and was criticised for not putting money aside for hard times. Some observers spoke of a "pink tide" sweeping across the continent.
Recent corruption scandals have also cast the ruling party in a more negative light, and some have speculated that Ecuador will follow Peru and Argentina in electing a conservative government. A decade on, Argentina and Brazil are led by conservative presidents, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro faces a hostile legislative and Evo Morales is on his last term after Bolivians rejected a proposal to change the constitution to allow him to run again.
Voting is mandatory in Ecuador, and 12 million people are expected to have cast their ballot. All eyes are now on Ecuador to see which way it turns.
For the first time, transgender people were able to vote according to their chosen sex, rather than that with which they were born. Men and women vote in separate lines in Ecuador and there were reports of harassment in previous elections. Who is the man in the lead?
Lenin Moreno, 63, served as Mr Correa's vice-president from 2007 to 2013 and has been one of his close allies although he has recently sought to distance himself slightly from the outgoing leader.
Observers say his style is less confrontational than that of Mr Correa and they suspect Mr Moreno may try to jettison some aspects of his predecessor's socialist policies.
As vice-president, Mr Moreno, who became paraplegic after being shot in the back in 1998, set out to improve the rights of people with disabilities.
Not only did he give motivational talks, he also published books on humour and happiness with titles proclaiming: "Being Happy is Easy and Fun".
Most recently, he served as UN Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility.
Among his main campaign promises are increasing employment opportunities and ensuring that all Ecuadoreans have the chance to go on to higher education.
Who could beat him to the top job?
His main rival is centre-right businessman and former presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso.
The 61-year-old is running for the Creando Oportunidades (Creating Opportunities) party.
A banker, Mr Lasso wants to create a million jobs by promoting foreign investment and has promised to cut taxes for big companies.
He also has plans to make Ecuador's central bank independent of the government.
The youngest of 11 children, he says he wants to "create an Ecuador with opportunities for all".
Why is Julian Assange following the election?
The WikiLeaks founder has tweeted a link to a live page on the results and has himself posted updates on the count.
Mr Assange has been living inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London for more than four years for fear of extradition to the United States after he published leaked documents.
But if Mr Lasso were to win the election, Mr Assange's time at the embassy could come to an end very soon as Mr Lasso has pledged to evict him within 30 days of taking office.
Mr Moreno has indicated he will allow let Mr Assange stay.
What awaits the winner?
The eventual winner of the election will be sworn in to a four-year term in May.
Economic recovery is likely to be a top priority. The oil-exporting country has suffered from a drop in international oil prices and has seen its GDP contract 1.7% in 2016.
Corruption is another major problem with officials from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht recently revealing that they paid close to $35.5m in bribes to Ecuadorean officials in exchange for contracts.
In foreign policy, the new president will have to deal with US President Donald Trump and his potentially more protectionist economic policies.