Ecuador's ruling-party candidate Lenin Moreno claimed victory Monday night in the country's presidential election against conservative candidate Guillermo Lasso, who is yet to acknowledge defeat after several exit polls showed he was leading by a relatively safe margin. MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) — Lenin Moreno, a candidate from Ecuador’s ruling PAIS Alliance party, is keeping his leadership in the Ecuador’s presidential election with 51.16 percent of votes after 99 percent of ballots have been processed, the National Electoral Council’s data showed on Monday. With the country's current President Rafael Correa not running in the election for the first time in more than a decade, two candidates, Moreno, a former vice president, and Guillermo Lasso, a candidate from Ecuador's opposition Creo-Suma alliance, participated in Sunday's run-off. Moreno's victory also came as a relief for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been living at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since he was granted asylum under Correa's government in 2012. Lasso and Moreno have both declared victory, but with 214,000 votes left to count, according to the National Electoral Council, there are twice as many outstanding votes as Moreno's winning margin.
Voters in Ecuador return to the polls for the second round of a presidential election, which Lenín Moreno of the socialist PAIS Alliance is predicted to narrowly win over the center-right Creating Opportunities's Guillermo Lasso. With 94.18% of the votes counted, Moreno leads with 51.07%. According to the national election commission, it was a transparent and successful election.