Divided, unhappy Ecuadoreans head to polls

Divided and disenchanted, Ecuadoreans vote today for a new president, choosing between two populists who seemed to spend more time during the campaign trading insults than offering ideas.

Right-wing billionaire Alvaro Noboa accused his opponent, economist Rafael Correa, of being a puppet of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez who doesn’t have the guts to admit he is a communist.

Correa accused Noboa of exploiting child labor and cheating his family out of control Ecuador’s largest banana plantation.

The ugly rhetoric has turned off voters and deepened the divide between right and left, analysts say. Recent newspaper editorials reflected the disaffection that voters feel toward the pair, who were the top two finishers among 13 candidates in an Oct. 15 primary.

Public opinion polls indicated that the outcome of today’s vote would be too close to predict.

To avoid miscues that could set off civil disturbances, Ecuador’s electoral tribunal said it could take two days to review and certify the result.

Officials at the Organization of American States, which is monitoring the vote, said they feared an aftermath similar to that in Mexico, where a disputed presidential election in July spawned continuing unrest.

“Neither one is going to last six months in office before the people drive them out,” predicted a municipal official in the southern city of Loja, who asked that his name not be used.

Ecuador’s last two elected presidents, Jamil Mahuad and Lucio Gutierrez, were driven from office by street protests.

Both candidates have promised to provide more housing, education and health coverage if elected.

But the newspaper El Mercurio of the southern city of Cuenca voiced the fear in an editorial Saturday that the winner would be forced from office “within a few months” if he failed to deliver on promises.

Noboa, 56, who inherited Ecuador’s largest banana plantation, near Guayaquil, and who has been listed by Forbes magazine as among the world’s richest men, has run twice for president. He lost to Mahuad in 1998 and to Gutierrez in 2002. He has promised to build 300,000 housing units his first year in office.

Noboa frequently handed out cash, computers and wheelchairs at his campaign rallies. He also frequently knelt, Bible in hand, in front of crowds to pray to God to protect Ecuador from a Correa victory.

“I am on my knees to pray for housing, stability and jobs for Ecuador,” Noboa said Thursday at his closing campaign stop in Guayaquil.

Correa, 43, has tapped into many Ecuadoreans’ disgust with the nation’s corrupt and fractured political system.

But he saw a big lead over the field of candidates evaporate in the final days before the presidential primary, partly because of his harsh anti-U.S. stance.

He has toned down the rhetoric, but remains opposed to a free-trade agreement with the United States, the “dollarization” of the Ecuadorean economy and extending the lease on the Manta air base, which the U.S. uses for spying on the drug trade.

A self-professed admirer and friend of Chavez, Correa has made the U.S. government and Wall Street nervous.

If elected, he would join a group of Latin American leaders who are sharply critical of Washington, including the leaders of Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia.

Correa has said he would seek to renegotiate payment on Ecuador’s foreign debt.

chris.kraul@latimes.com