SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Lenin Moreno, leader of the ruling party, is seen as the political successor to outgoing President Rafael Correa.
(Photo: AP)
Likely Leftist Victory in Ecuador Election Rejects "Oligarch's Candidate"
Julian Assange also expected to stay in Ecuadorian embassy in London after tense election ends with leftist candidate Lenín Moreno as president
Apr 03, 2017
A nail-biting election in Ecuador appeared to end Sunday with leftist candidate Lenin Moreno winning the presidency over conservative Guillermo Lasso.
The National Electoral Council declared Moreno the winner by 51 percent, just minutes after another organization had said the race was a technical tie with both candidates being within 0.6 percentage points of each other.
Lasso demanded a recount as his supporters protested.
Moreno, leader of the ruling party, is seen as the political successor to outgoing President Rafael Correa. Moreno also previously served as Correa's vice president.
William K. Black, lawyer and academic, wrote an op-ed for Common Dreams last week that described Lasso as "a leader in aiding Ecuador's oligarchs to evade taxation through offshore tax havens" whose "platform is the standard right-wing recipe that caused Ecuador's recurrent economic, social, and political crises."
Indeed, Moreno rose in the polls in the week leading up the vote, after his party criticized Lasso for profiting from the nation's 1999 banking crisis.
The election was seen as a temperature check of Latin America's recent rightward shift. Brazil's former President Dilma Rousseff was ousted in 2016 in what many called a coup, while Argentina elected neoliberal businessman Mauricio Macri the year before. Peru also elected a right-leaning government in 2016.
Moreno's victory also means that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will likely be able to remain at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where Correa granted him asylum in 2012 after he released tens of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables and documents.
Lasso had vowed that if elected, he would "cordially invite" Assange to vacate the embassy within 30 days.
Assange responded to the result with a pointed remark at Lasso.
"I cordially invite Lasso to leave Ecuador within 30 days (with or without his tax haven millions)," Assange tweeted Monday.
Assange has lived in the Ecuadorian embassy for the past five years, fearing extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations. He has said he believes extradition would end with him being sent to the U.S., where he is wanted for publishing the diplomatic cables.
On January 20th, it begins...
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. Our Year-End campaign is our most important fundraiser of the year. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
A nail-biting election in Ecuador appeared to end Sunday with leftist candidate Lenin Moreno winning the presidency over conservative Guillermo Lasso.
The National Electoral Council declared Moreno the winner by 51 percent, just minutes after another organization had said the race was a technical tie with both candidates being within 0.6 percentage points of each other.
Lasso demanded a recount as his supporters protested.
Moreno, leader of the ruling party, is seen as the political successor to outgoing President Rafael Correa. Moreno also previously served as Correa's vice president.
William K. Black, lawyer and academic, wrote an op-ed for Common Dreams last week that described Lasso as "a leader in aiding Ecuador's oligarchs to evade taxation through offshore tax havens" whose "platform is the standard right-wing recipe that caused Ecuador's recurrent economic, social, and political crises."
Indeed, Moreno rose in the polls in the week leading up the vote, after his party criticized Lasso for profiting from the nation's 1999 banking crisis.
The election was seen as a temperature check of Latin America's recent rightward shift. Brazil's former President Dilma Rousseff was ousted in 2016 in what many called a coup, while Argentina elected neoliberal businessman Mauricio Macri the year before. Peru also elected a right-leaning government in 2016.
Moreno's victory also means that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will likely be able to remain at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where Correa granted him asylum in 2012 after he released tens of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables and documents.
Lasso had vowed that if elected, he would "cordially invite" Assange to vacate the embassy within 30 days.
Assange responded to the result with a pointed remark at Lasso.
"I cordially invite Lasso to leave Ecuador within 30 days (with or without his tax haven millions)," Assange tweeted Monday.
Assange has lived in the Ecuadorian embassy for the past five years, fearing extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations. He has said he believes extradition would end with him being sent to the U.S., where he is wanted for publishing the diplomatic cables.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
A nail-biting election in Ecuador appeared to end Sunday with leftist candidate Lenin Moreno winning the presidency over conservative Guillermo Lasso.
The National Electoral Council declared Moreno the winner by 51 percent, just minutes after another organization had said the race was a technical tie with both candidates being within 0.6 percentage points of each other.
Lasso demanded a recount as his supporters protested.
Moreno, leader of the ruling party, is seen as the political successor to outgoing President Rafael Correa. Moreno also previously served as Correa's vice president.
William K. Black, lawyer and academic, wrote an op-ed for Common Dreams last week that described Lasso as "a leader in aiding Ecuador's oligarchs to evade taxation through offshore tax havens" whose "platform is the standard right-wing recipe that caused Ecuador's recurrent economic, social, and political crises."
Indeed, Moreno rose in the polls in the week leading up the vote, after his party criticized Lasso for profiting from the nation's 1999 banking crisis.
The election was seen as a temperature check of Latin America's recent rightward shift. Brazil's former President Dilma Rousseff was ousted in 2016 in what many called a coup, while Argentina elected neoliberal businessman Mauricio Macri the year before. Peru also elected a right-leaning government in 2016.
Moreno's victory also means that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will likely be able to remain at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where Correa granted him asylum in 2012 after he released tens of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables and documents.
Lasso had vowed that if elected, he would "cordially invite" Assange to vacate the embassy within 30 days.
Assange responded to the result with a pointed remark at Lasso.
"I cordially invite Lasso to leave Ecuador within 30 days (with or without his tax haven millions)," Assange tweeted Monday.
Assange has lived in the Ecuadorian embassy for the past five years, fearing extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations. He has said he believes extradition would end with him being sent to the U.S., where he is wanted for publishing the diplomatic cables.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.