Upcoming Ecuador Elections
In 1979 dictatorship gave way to democracy in the small Andean country. Upcoming elections may upset the fragile political stability of Ecuador that is notorious for having presidents ousted out of office before their terms. The government typically experiences gridlock due to the large number of political parties running. Minority-style governments are the norm and the executive party in power requires the formations of difficult coalitions in order to pass any legislation. Ambiguous and contradictory clauses within the constitution add further to the difficulties between the president and congress.
Left-wing candidate Rafeal Correa is currently leading the opinion polls with a power-to-the-people message. His confident and charismatic personality has endeared voters. He seeks to emulate a government style similar to that of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Correa is promising voters to clean-up corruption, form a special assembly to rewrite the constitution, close the US military bases operating in Ecuador, restructure the country's external debt, and renegotiate contracts with foreign investors in the oil industry such as Spain's Repsol, Petrobras of Brazil, France's Perenco, and Andes Petroleum of China.
Correa receives strong support from the impoverished highlands where he stated in the indigenous Quichua language that "…The political and economic elites have stolen everything from us, but they cannot steal our hope … We will take back our oil, our country, our future."
Second in the opinion polls is centre-leftwing León Roldós. His support draws mainly from the coast and urban centres. Support for Roldós has been slipping since September. Roldós has sought to attack Correa's connection with Chavez in a similar manner that Garcia used during his presidential win in Peru earlier this year over Humula. But admiration for the Venezuelan leader runs high as supported by a recent poll by CIMA so this approach may not be as successful as it was in Peru.
Ecuador has recently been a regional play for mining stocks since the advent of Aurelian's spectacular drilling results beginning in April. Some mining companies with exposure to Ecuador are:
Ascendant Copper Corp. (ACX-X)
Aurelian Resources Inc. (ARU-X)
Corriente Resources Inc. (CTQ-T)
Goldmarca (GML-X)
Iamgold (IMG-T)Oromonte Resources (ORR-X)