MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gutierrez wins Ecuadorian presidency in a landslide

Lucio Gutierrez will be Ecuador's next president as the ongoing vote count indicated that his rival, multimillionaire Alvaro Noboa, will be unable to overcome his wide lead.
With 97.88 percent of the ballots counted, Gutierrez had 54.33 percent of the valid votes to Noboa's 45.67 percent.

A total of 2,710,983 votes were cast for Gutierrez - within the 97.88 percent of the total valid ballots counted - and 2,278,563 were cast for Noboa.

Blank votes totalled 49,337 (0.87 percent of all ballots cast), and null votes totaled 621,782 (10.98 percent of all ballots). Absenteeism was calculated at 28.85 percent.

In his first statement after the outline of the result became known, Gutierrez called for national unity "so that the country can move forward." He announced that his first step once he is sworn in will be to call for a "great national meeting" and he invited all the country's political forces to clothe themselves in yellow, blue and red, the national colours.

The 45-year-old former military man appeared calm upon receiving the news, and he also called for calm on the part of the public, in particular asking his supporters to avoid acting triumphant in the face of his victory.

Supreme Election Tribunal head Carlos Aguinaga praised the manner in which Sunday's runoff election was carried out, saying that the vote's transparency was that which would be demanded of future presidents.

The elections, monitored by more than 100 international observers, proceeded normally all day Sunday, except for a few incidents in the province of Chimborazo, where a vote strike was called by some local mayors