Millionaire businessman Guillermo Lasso elected Ecuador’s president
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Gideon Long in Quito
Millionaire businessman Guillermo Lasso will be Ecuador’s next president after pulling off a remarkable victory in Sunday’s election, overcoming a deficit of 13 percentage points between the first and second rounds to beat leftwing candidate Andrés Arauz.
With 98.5 per cent of the vote counted, the National Electoral Council gave Lasso 52.5 per cent of the vote to Arauz’s 47.5 per cent. Almost every opinion poll in the run-up to the vote had suggested Arauz would win, albeit by a narrow margin.
In upmarket areas of Quito, Ecuador’s capital, motorists honked and shouted “Lasso! Lasso!” as they drove through the streets.
