Ecuadorans will vote on Sunday to elect a new president with a straight choice between socialist Andres Arauz and conservative Guillermo Lasso to take over the mantle of the beleaguered Lenin Moreno.
The next president will begin his term on May 24 with the country suffering from an economic crisis badly aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Opinion polls have the two contenders neck and neck in a classic left versus right battle for control of the country.
Economist Arauz, 36, is a virtual unknown but topped February’s first round of voting on the back of support from his mentor and former president Rafael Correa.
Former banker Lasso, 65, is a seasoned politician who is hoping it will be third time lucky in his presidential bid having twice finished second: to Correa in 2013 and Moreno in 2017.
Polls open at 7:00 am (1200 GMT) with voting obligatory for 13.1 million people in the tiny oil-producing South American country of 17.4 million.
Whoever wins will have to manage an economic crisis exasperated by a 7.8 percent contraction in GDP in 2020.
Overall debt is almost $64 billion — 63 percent of GDP — of which $45 billion (45 percent of GDP) is external debt.
At the same time, there is the pandemic to manage after more than 340,000 people contracted Covid-19 with over 17,000 of them dying.
