Voters in Ecuador will have to return to the polls on 2 April after the first round of the presidential election failed to produce an outright winner. Lenín Moreno, the candidate for the ruling Alianza País (AP), could not quite muster the 40% of the vote he needed in the first round on 19 February, although he achieved the requisite 10-percentage-point lead over his nearest rival, Guillermo Lasso, the former banker who ran for the centre-right Movimiento Creo. Lasso also finished second in the last elections in 2013 although he was crushed by President Rafael Correa, who remains the only candidate to win at the first time of asking since Ecuador’s return to democracy in 1978. Lasso is trying to rally the other six opposition presidential candidates behind his candidacy for the run-off with Moreno. He has already met with some success, which suggests that the second round will be closely contested.End of preview - This article contains approximately 1735 words.
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