Polls Divided on Winner in Ecuador's Presidential Runoff Vote

Polls Divided on Winner in Ecuador's Presidential Runoff Vote
Fecha de publicación: 
27 February 2017
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Since returning to democracy, the race for the presidency in Ecuador has been traditionally resolved in a second round.

The first polls after the first round of Ecuador's presidential election show a division between the leftist front-runner Lenin Moreno and the conservative former banker Guillermo Lasso, as two polling organizations place one or the other as the likely winner.

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According to a survey conducted by the Center for Social Research, known as CIS, ruling Alianza Pais party candidate Moreno holds a significant advantage over Lasso in the second round scenario and was projected in the poll to win with 59 percent of valid votes over 41 percent for his rival.

The survey was conducted in the wake of the Feb. 19 election — from Feb. 22 to 24 — through 2,500 interviews nationwide, and is likely the first of many polls before the April 2 runoff. 

On the other hand, according to the polling company Cedatos, if the election were today Lasso would win 52.1 percent of the valid votes over Moreno's 47.9 percent.

According to the firm, 81 percent of Ecuadoreans have already decided who to vote for, while 19 percent still don't know. The poll was conducted between Thursday and Friday with 2,861 people from 23 cities and has a margin of error of 3.4 percent.

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With 99.93 percent of the counted votes, the National Electoral Council announced front-runner Moreno led the presidential race with 39.36 percent of the vote of more than 13 million voters. In second place is the right-winger Lasso, who trailed more than 10 percent behind with 28.09 percent.

Although he fell short of the 40 percent threshold needed to avoid a second round, Moreno received the highest percentage of the vote in the first round than any other president in Ecuador in past 40 years, with the exception of President Rafael Correa.

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