Lenin Morena and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa

Rafael Correa (L) congratulates Lenín Moreno. (AP)

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Update: Five Things to Know about Ecuador's Runoff Election

By Holly K. Sonneland

Although Lenín Moreno's win is now official, his rival Guillermo Lasso is crying foul. 

Updated, April 4 — Ecuador’s presidential race was a dead heat leading right up to the April 2 runoff between former Vice President Lenín Moreno and ex-banker Guillermo Lasso. The outcome proved to be a close call, but on April 4, Ecuador's National Electoral Commission (CNE) certified that Moreno(link is external), who served under President Rafael Correa, eked out a narrow win.

Here’s what you need to know about Ecuador’s second-round presidential vote. 

1. It took two days to certify, but Moreno’s win is now official.

More than 10 million Ecuadorans voted in the presidential runoff between Moreno and Lasso. With 99.65 percent of votes counted by Tuesday afternoon, Moreno led with 51.16 percent(link is external) of the vote over Lasso’s 48.84 percent. This gave Moreno a 230,000-vote lead over Lasso and fewer than 38,000 votes left to be counted.

2. Lasso is claiming fraud and refuses to concede.

But Lasso is not conceding yet, citing fraud(link is external) in the official results after exit polls showed him with the lead. When a Cedatos exit poll(link is external) showed Lasso with a 53 to 47 percent edge over Moreno on Sunday afternoon, the candidate claimed victory and celebrated the results(link is external). Lasso allies also cited exit polls from Market and Informe Confidencial also showed the former banker with a 3- to 4-point lead(link is external) over the ex-vice president. But as the night went on, official results started to come in that showed Moreno was, in fact, leading. Later, a Perfiles de Opinión exit poll showed Moreno up 52 to 48(link is external). A state-owned newspaper published reports in mid-March that a group that advises the bank Lasso used to direct paid for certain Cedatos election polls(link is external), though the Gallup-affiliated firm is widely regarded as independent. 

During the runoff campaign, the attorney general’s office briefly retweeted a Moreno campaign event(link is external), and Lasso cited this and other instances as evidence of state tampering and fraud in elections in a letter(link is external) to OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro during the week before the vote.

But on April 3, the OAS released a statement(link is external) saying its observation mission found no instances of fraud in the election, and moreover, that it "regrets the political use made of exit polls that were published minutes before the voting had closed," and urged any challenges to the results to be conducted through legal channels. It also came out that the Informe Confidencial exit poll did not in fact take place(link is external).

3. Ecuador is set up for a tense week.

Lasso continued to tweet(link is external) throughout Sunday night and Monday morning, citing examples of alleged fraud and urging his supporters(link is external) to “peacefully” demand transparency from the CNE. On Monday morning, the top Twitter trends included both Lasso and Moreno’s names, #LenínPresidenteDeTodos (#LenínPresidentforAll) and #LenínNoEsMiPresidente (#LenínIsNotMyPresident), some of the polls in question, and a simple #FRAUDE or “fraud.”

Unrest followed in the days after the February 19 first-round vote, as the CNE took three days to certify the official results(link is external). The U.S. Embassy in Ecuador’s statement(link is external) on the runoff was a March 31 warning of election-related violence.

Moreno, for his part, is taking his win as a done deal(link is external) and looking ahead to his administration. An April 3 tweet(link is external) from Lasso read: “The fight continues, friends. We will not lower our arms for one second.”

4. It’s a much-needed win for beleaguered Correa and his allies—including Julian Assange.

On Sunday evening, as official results tilted more and more toward a Moreno victory, the congratulations started coming in on Twitter from Correa’s supporters. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro(link is external) and other state officials were full of praise, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales tweeted(link is external), in a reference to the trade and cooperation bloc created by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro in 2004: “We ALBA countries are small but share much history and principles, as did our anti-colonial ancestors. Another world is possible.”

Julian Assange, meanwhile, trolled Lasso, tweeting(link is external), “I cordially invite Lasso to leave Ecuador within 30 days (with or without his tax haven millions) #AssangeSILassoNO.” The tweet was a tongue-in-cheek carbon copy of Lasso’s plan to, within 30 days of taking office, ask Assange to leave Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he’s been holed up for the last five years. Correa granted the WikiLeaks founder asylum(link is external) in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to face sexual assault charges in Sweden. Assange’s tweet also references a scandal(link is external) that embroiled Lasso in the final two weeks of the campaign over claims the former Bank of Guayaquil head held tens of millions of dollars in offshore accounts.

5. In a weekend of heavy news from South America, Ecuador vote got drowned out.

In the 48 hours before Ecuadorans headed to the polls, a mudslide(link is external) killed hundreds in neighboring Colombia, protestors in Paraguay stormed and set fire to Congress(link is external) and police shot and killed a student activist, and Venezuela’s Supreme Court reversed(link is external) a couple of controversial decisions that’d sent the country into a constitutional tailspin. By Monday evening, the presidents of Argentina, Chile, and Peru had all tweeted their congratulations to Moreno. Brazilian President Michel Temer, meanwhile, congratulated the Ecuadoran people for their "commitment to democracy," but did not mention Moreno's name(link is external).

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