QUITO—Ecuadorians were voting on Sunday in a hard-fought presidential election that could see an ally of socialist President Rafael Correa extend a decade of leftist rule or a former banker usher in more business-friendly policies.
The Andean country is on edge after a tense campaign that centered on a flagging economy, while the region is watching to see if Ecuador will follow Argentina, Brazil and Peru in shifting to the right as a commodities boom ended.
Ecuador’s election also has international repercussions, with conservative challenger Guillermo Lasso vowing to remove Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from Ecuador’s London embassy if he wins the Sunday run-off.
Government candidate Lenin Moreno, 64, a paraplegic former vice-president, just missed the minimum threshold to win the presidency in the first round in February, and the latest polls show him leading Lasso in the second round.
Moreno, who uses a wheelchair since being shot during a robbery in 1998, has promised to boost social benefits to single mothers, pensioners and disabled Ecuadorians while being more conciliatory than the mercurial Correa.
