Political scenario slightly clearer

ECUADOR - In Brief 31 Aug 2020 by Magdalena Barreiro

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We expected a large dispersion in the political scenario, and that is what we got with 20 political parties registering their candidates for president and vice-president. Our first feeling is that the group representing Rafael Correa - regardless of whether Correa is enabled as a candidate or not (which we might know next Thursday) - has a pretty good chance to pass into the second round. The other candidate in our opinion is Guillermo Lasso from CREO. While most unofficial polls give the Correistas around 20%, some of them place Lasso with either a low 13% or a high 40%, depending of where the poll was taken or who carried out the poll. However, the other strong party on the rightist side of the spectrum --albeit on the populist edge --the Social Christian Party has just declined its presidential and vice-presidential options and has joined CREO, strengthening significantly the probability of Lasso's of passing into the second round. In exchange, Lasso has accepted to support the public referendum proposed by Nebot a couple of months ago when he declined his candidacy. His original proposal was quite populist, and we sincerely hope that the topics and questions receive a little more thought and contribution from the more moderate CREO candidate. Social Christians will keep their options for legislators, but if Lasso is elected, they will not turn into the opposition, at least in the first year of government.All in all, good news!