- Title: Ecuador's presidential candidates close out campaigns for run-off
- Date: 31st March 2017
- Summary: ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** MORENO WAVING TO SUPPORTERS
- Embargoed: 14th April 2017 14:07
- Keywords: Lenin Moreno Guillermo Lasso Rafael Correa second round presidential election run-off
- Location: QUITO AND GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR
- City: QUITO AND GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR
- Country: Ecuador
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA0056AAK8XV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Ecuador's presidential candidates closed out their campaigns on Thursday (March 30) ahead of this weekend's run-off election.
In Quito, supporters waved flags and banners and cheered for Lenin Moreno, the candidate of ruling party Alianza Pais, who holds a slight edge in the polls. It was a similar scene further south in Guayaquil where Guillermo Lasso of the opposition party "Creating Opportunities" ended his campaign.
With a sputtering economy the top voter concern, Ecuadoreans will chose between continuing a decade of leftist rule or following several South American nations in shifting towards a more pro-business government as a commodities boom ends.
Lenin Moreno, 64, a paraplegic former vice-president, just missed the minimum threshold to win the presidency in the first round in February, and latest polls show him narrowly beating conservative rival Guillermo Lasso this time around.
Moreno, who uses a wheelchair since being shot during a robbery in 1998, has promised to boost social benefits to single mothers, pensioners and disabled Ecuadoreans.
Lasso, a 61-year-old former head of Banco de Guayaquil who has campaigned on boosting jobs, retorts Moreno is recklessly over-promising considering Ecuador's highly indebted economy.
The new president will take office on May 24 for a four-year term. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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