BRIEFING PAPER CBP 9114, 19 April 2021 Ecuador: 2021 By Nigel Walker and Eleanor Gadd presidential election Contents: 1. Background 2. 2021 Presidential election 3. UK-Ecuador relations www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library |
[email protected] | @commonslibrary 2 Ecuador: 2021 presidential election Contents Summary 3 1. Background 4 2. 2021 Presidential election 5 2.1 Candidates 5 2.2 Election campaign 7 2.3 Election results (first round), 7 February 8 2.4 Election results (run-off poll), 11 April 9 2.5 Looking ahead 9 3. UK-Ecuador relations 11 Cover page image copyright: Ecuador flag by Skratos1983 / image cropped. Licensed under Pixabay License – no attribution required. 3 Commons Library Briefing, 19 April 2021 Summary Ecuador held a general election on 7 February 2021 to elect a President, Vice-President and members of the National Assembly. The country’s National Electoral Council (CNE) registered 16 presidential and vice- presidential candidates for the election, with opinion polls pointing to a three-way race between Andrés Arauz, Guillermo Lasso and Yaku Pérez. The election took place under the cloud of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Government’s response to the pandemic and the worsening economic situation were key factors for voters. None of the candidates secured the 40 per cent of votes required for an outright victory, but Andrés Arauz topped the first round by a significant margin and immediately progressed to the run-off. It was initially unclear which other candidate would contest the run-off poll as the second- and third-placed candidates were neck-and-neck in the preliminary results and the CNE announced recounts would be held in many provinces.