MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuador: survey shows split electorate and turbulence

Ecuador's richest man and a left wing US educated economist have ended their campaigns for next Sunday's presidential run off which is too close to anticipate not only a clear winner, but a promising politically stable future for the oil rich country.

Millionaire Alvaro Noboa, in this third presidential attempt, has promised to create new jobs, build houses, boost salaries and fight poverty and corruption while claiming his rival economist Rafael Correa is planning to install a communist dictatorship with the help of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro.

The two men are running very close according to the latest public opinion polls and analysts describe many voters as deeply disaffected. A Cedatos-Gallup survey showed both candidates technically par with 22% still undecided.

A first round of voting in October failed to deliver a clear victor in a field with at least seven candidates. Ecuador is electing its eighth leader in a decade of political turbulence with the last three elected presidents overthrown and only three since 1979 have succeeded in serving full terms.

Noboa whose family has a world empire built on the banana industry, held his final rally in his stronghold, the country's financial center of Guayaquil in the coast. He has handed out money and gifts to supporters at many of his rallies and in one of them he fell to his knees and pleaded with God to let him win on Sunday.

At his final rally in the capital Quito in the Andean highlands Correa urged his supporters to follow the vehicles transporting ballot boxes to make sure votes were not tampered with. "We have to defend the electoral victory, ensure there is no vote buying," he said. An election win for Noboa, he warned, would turn Ecuador into the banana magnate's "estate".

A mission of international observers from the Organization of American States will be monitoring the Sunday balloting. The OAS mission is headed by former Argentine Foreign Affairs minister Rafael Bielsa who has called on all voters to remain quietly at their homes waiting for the final results. Mr. Bielsa has been questioned by both sides.

A total of 9.2 million Ecuadorians are registered to vote next Sunday and voting is compulsory.