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| - Ecuadoran voters were choosing between a young, socialist protege of ex-leader Rafael Correa and a veteran conservative as they voted for their new president on Sunday with the oil-rich country mired in an economic crisis aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Opinion polls have the two contenders neck and neck in a battle for control of the country. Economist Andres Arauz, 36, is virtually unknown but topped February's first round of voting on the back of support from his mentor, Correa, who led the country from 2007-17. "This is our opportunity to leave the past behind, to leave this pain, this suffering, this exclusion we've experienced lately and to move to a truly humane government, one which loves its people," said Arauz while accompanying a voter in the capital Quito. Arauz himself didn't vote because he is still registered in Mexico where he was studying for a doctorate before deciding to run in the election. Ex-banker Guillermo Lasso, 65, is a seasoned politician and third-time presidential aspirant after having twice finished second: to Correa in 2013 and Lenin Moreno in 2017. "I invite you to give us an opportunity to serve you ... because with humility I say: I will give my life for the people," said Lasso when voting in Ecuador's largest city Guayaquil, the country's economic motor. Polls opened at 7:00 am (1200 GMT) with voting obligatory for 13.1 million people in the small South American country. Voting will close at 5:00 pm with the first results expected a couple of hours after that, according to the National Electoral Council. Whoever wins will take over from beleaguered Moreno on May 24 and will immediately face an economic crisis exasperated by a 7.8 percent contraction in GDP in 2020. Overall debt is almost $64 billion -- 63 percent of GDP -- of which $45 billion (45 percent of GDP) is external debt. At the same time, the country has been hard hit by the pandemic with hospitals overwhelmed by more than 340,000 coronavirus infections and over 17,000 deaths. "There are economic, health and government crises at the moment," said Wendy Reyes, a professor and political consultant at the University of Washington. "Whoever wins will face a completely divided picture." Arauz, the candidate from the Union of Hope coalition, topped the first round with almost 33 percent of the vote, some 13 percentage points ahead of Lasso, from the Creating Opportunities movement. Correa would have been his running mate but for an eight-year conviction for corruption. "If Arauz wins, Correism will continue. If Lasso wins, we will immediately end this Correism, which has been a terrible situation for years," Judith Viteri, 41, who works in a chemist, told AFP after voting. Correa lives in exile in Belgium, where his wife was born, and he is able to avoid his prison sentence. But his influence on Ecuadoran politics remains strong. The two candidates can barely be separated in polls. The last poll by Market predicted a "technical draw" on Sunday with Arauz garnering 50 percent and Lasso getting 49 percent. The election is "totally uncertain," Market director Blasco Penaherrera told AFP. However, Penaherrera said that Lasso's "growth" is "vastly superior" to that of Arauz. Lasso scraped into the runoff by less than half a percentage point ahead of indigenous candidate Yaku Perez, who contested the result and claimed to have been the victim of fraud. It took weeks for Lasso's second place to be confirmed. Ahead of the runoff, electoral officials have decided to abandon the usual rapid count to avoid potentially misleading results. Socialist Perez, whose Pachakutik indigenous movement is the second-largest bloc in parliament, picked up around 20 percent of the vote in the first round. Pachakutik has refused to back either candidate in the second round. "This social division, that the campaign highlighted, means that the vote to reject Correa effectively goes to Lasso," said Pablo Romero, an analyst at Salesiana University. Political scientist Santiago Basabe, of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, believes Arauz has the edge. "While either could win, it seems to me that Arauz has more chance," said Basabe. However, "there's a feeling that to a certain extent, it doesn't matter who wins, we just need an immediate change," said Romero. Should Lasso win he would face a tough job with Arauz's leftist coalition the largest bloc in Congress. "There will be permanent tension with the executive. There's almost no chance of the reforms the country needs," said Romero. vel-bur/sp/bc/bgs
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