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LatinNews Daily - 06 February 2017

Ecuador’s Moreno enters the fray

Development: On 5 February Lenín Moreno, the presidential candidate for Ecuador’s ruling left-wing Alianza País (AP) party, participated in his first televised debate with his seven rivals ahead of the 19 February general elections.



Significance: Moreno withdrew from the first presidential debate organised by the Guayaquil chamber of commerce on 25 January, condemning “debates based on confrontation and conduct that devalues political truth”, but his slow but perceptible slide in the opinion polls following his failure to take part in the first debate persuaded him of the need to participate in the second. The eight presidential candidates presented their proposals on a series of issues ranging from governance, macroeconomic and tax policy, to corruption, freedom of expression, and social security. Moreno came under fire from his rivals for various corruption scandals which have come to light in recent months under the AP government led by President Rafael Correa. Iván Espinel, an outsider who opened the debate, said that “the cancer of corruption” had deteriorated under the present government, although he also took aim at Guillermo Lasso, the candidate for the centre-right opposition Movimiento Creando Oportunidades (Creo), who is running second in opinion polls behind Moreno. Espinel blamed Lasso, a former banker, for the 1999 financial crisis. Espinel also advocated a ‘Ley bisturí’ (‘scalpel law’) against corruption, including 40-year prison sentences for misappropriation of public funds.


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