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Ecuador Election Heating Up

Ecuador is preparing for a second-round-vote after no candidate managed to receive the minimal percentage of Ecuador`s 9 million voters. The two candidates who have made it to the second stage are pro-American Alvaro Noboa and his left-wing rival, Rafael Correa. Both are rallying for last minute voters in the country`s obligatory elections. This election will determine whether the eighth president in the past 10 years will be aligned with pro-American Colombia and Peru or with anti-American Venezuela and Cuba. Ecuadorian law doesn`t allow polls to be published 20 days before the national elections but international financial institutions have conducted polls so that Ecuadorians who have internet access could see Correa has a slight advantage over his rival.

Correa, who is considered to extremely radical, tried to moderate his perceived views by meeting with the American ambassador to Ecuador but still boasts his close relations with Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and main proponent of anti-American rhetoric in the continent. Correa plans to renegotiate Ecuador`s foreign debt and to oust the last American military presence in the continent, which is located in the country. Correa received his doctorate in economics at the University of Illinois.

Noboa has also tried to moderate his perceived views going back on his announcement that if he wins the election he will cut ties with Venezuela. Chavez described Noboa as ?the banana king who exploits his workers and exploits children and puts them to work.? Noboa has denied the allegations that children worked at his banana plantations but the Human Rights Watch documented child labor at his plantations in 2002.