MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Preliminary results in Ecuador show Alvaro Noboa in the lead

Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced Sunday evening that 26 percent of the votes in the day's presidential election have been counted and that businessman Alvaro Noboa was in the lead with 17.47 percent.

Former president and Socialist Party candidate Leon Roldos was in second place with 16.71 percent of the vote.

Due to the tightness of the race, analysts warned that the preliminary results will continue to fluctuate throughout the counting process.

Former rebel Col. Lucio Gutierrez was running third with 16.1 percent.

The 200 international observers have reported no irregularities so far.

TSE director Carlos Aguinaga asked his fellow countrymen to remain "calm" and said that the returns from the country's precincts are being fed steadily into the data processing system for tabulation.

Former Ecuadorian President Rodrigo Borja (1988-1992) from the Democratic Left said he was "optimistic and happy" a few minutes after the polls closed, and that "one must know how to lose with dignity and to win without disdain." "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Borja said as he reminded people that the first results only represent a million or so votes, in a country of 12 million people.

Aguinaga said that the candidates who lose should be "decent and ethical" and accept the results because those are "the rules of democracy." Candidate Alvaro Noboa, a banana-business multi-millionaire not related to outgoing President Gustavo Noboa, failed at his presidential bid in 1998, but said on Sunday that he felt confident of going on to the Nov. 24 runoff.

A runoff election is a virtual certainty, as analysts have predicted that no candidate is likely to get even 20 percent of the vote.