Ecuadorians go to the polls on Sunday with certainty and many unknowns. The only certainty is that the current president, Lenin Moreno, Is preparing to leave the office next May without publicly sponsoring any applicant, at least for now. Elections are being held with 16 candidates who will dampen votes, although opinion studies highlight two favored names: Andrés Arause, leader of the platform Unión por la Esperanza and promoted by Ex-President Raphael Correa; Governor Guillermo Lasso, a long-time acquaintance with Ecuadorian politics, Minister of Economy during the 1999 financial crisis, former Governor of Guayas, Province of Guayaquil, and today President of the CREO Movement.

In none of the available surveys a candidate higher than 50% is necessary to win the first round, and in the most recent polls there is not even a win scenario of more than 40% and a margin of advantage of 10 points, which is another condition to avoid a tie break. There is, it is true, an important difference in the methods of surveys considered. Judging by the percentage of people included in the blank, blank, or hesitant voting categories, while some of them appear to be filtering or recalibrating the data to only get the estimated support percentage for each candidate (and thus the value of the remaining categories is nearly zero), other survey houses have Large quantities of empty, empty or hesitant. But in any case, no candidate reaches the necessary threshold even among those who remove voter doubts from the equation.

The other central consensus in the polls is Arouse’s favorite margin. All studies considered since November 17th give it first place, either by a wide or small margin. However, there is no expectation higher than 40%. It also encounters its main ideological rival, Guillermo LassoAnd I took second place. Finally, there is a consensus that the disputed third party will be Indigenous leader Yaco Perez, far enough away in all of them that the second round between Araese and Laso is the most reasonable demographic forecast.

A possible second round is scheduled to be held on April 11, after more than two months, as happened in the previous presidential elections. In 2017, Moreno, then Korea’s candidate, failed to beat Laso in the first round, even though he was close to him, and the final result was decided in another vote. The last time a candidate won an election in the South American country without needing to break the tie was in 2013. Korea at the time had very broad electoral support and was able to easily renew his term with 57% of the vote. The former president, who remains very present in the political debate in the country despite his inauguration in Belgium, ruled Ecuador for ten years.

It is difficult to extrapolate the direction of candidates for this election, among other reasons because of the diversity in the methods mentioned above, but also because of the scarcity of polls available. Only eleven were recorded during January; Fourteen since Christmas Eve 2020. Thus, the upward slope of the curve for Uraws, who was a former minister in the last stage of Korea, could be a statistical result. However, within the framework of the aforementioned precautions, it seems reasonable to assume that his candidacy will increase, not less, among the citizens. The fragmentation of options and the fact that his main rival, Laso, is a well-known candidate with a remarkably conservative profile, adds to the equation that will determine the future of the Andean country next Sunday.