Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno on Wednesday asked the National Electoral Council (CNE) to communicate reliable results, while the holder of second place in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday is still not defined.
"The country needs the results, but with complete confidence in these results,"
he told the CNE, in a radio and television intervention.
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Left-wing indigenous leader Yaku Perez and former right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso are battling for second place in the second round scheduled for April 11, in which one of them will face economist Andrés Arauz, colt of the former -Socialist President Rafael Correa (2007-2017).
Lenin Moreno also urged the electoral authorities to
"deal with all requests for revision"
of the votes and to do so in a transparent manner.
"We aim to achieve a transparent process,"
assured the president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint.
Perez, a 51-year-old environmental lawyer, got 19.65% of the vote and Lasso, 65, was at 19.60%, according to the partial results recorded by the CNE when there were 3.36% of electoral acts left in validate.
Arauz, 36, was in the lead with 32.44%.
Faced with his narrow margin with the right-wing candidate, the indigenous leader raised the possibility of fraud against him and his supporters had been keeping a watch in front of the CNE since the end of the general elections on Sunday.
Moreno, who was not standing for re-election and whose four-year term will end on May 24, further asked the candidates to demonstrate
“their democratic vocation and their maximum care for social peace”.
On Twitter, Perez, candidate of the Pachakutik party, the political arm of the indigenous movement, called on his supporters
“for calm, for peace, to wait patiently for the results, but to be vigilant on each vote (...) in favor of this project for an Ecuador without corruption and transparency.
Together we will succeed, ”
he wrote.
"We do not want conflict, we do not want to disturb the peace, we do not want violence"
, he told the press in Guayaquil (southwest), where he attended the review of acts. electoral.
The United States, the Observer Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Ecuadorian Catholic Church have called for
"calm"
until the final results.
"We hope to be able to complete the count in the next 48 hours,"
Ms. Atamaint told Ecuavisa television channel.