Race for 2d Place Continues in Ecuador's Presidential Elections

With 97.56 percent of the votes counted, the National Electoral Council (CNE) has not yet been able to dispel who is in second place.

RELATED:

Ecuador Decides Its Future on February 7th

As of Monday morning, Union for Hope (UNES) presidential candidate Andres Arauz maintains first place with 32.20 percent of votes in his favor.

However, Pachakutik candidate Yaku Perez had 19.80 percent of the votes and the CREO candidate Guillermo Lasso reached 19.60 percent.

The small difference between these candidates means a "technical tie", which does not yet allow authorities to assure who will participate in the second round of elections to be held on April 11.

These data are based on 39,007 electoral reports processed so far. The results of 978 precincts are still to be counted.

However, electoral authorities also announced that 5,580 tally sheets will have to be verified again before the final official results are proclaimed.

This verification could take days because Provincial Electoral Boards will have to open the ballot boxes to contrast the vote count performed by the Boards Receiving the Vote (JRV) with the number of votes in the tally sheets.