An Andean woman casts a ballot outside Quito today
Source: Associated Press, via Houston Chronicle

Ecuador’s beautiful women wait in line to vote
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News

I am in shock.

I was so depressed about the electoral prospects of Ecuador, where a Chavista prettyboy, Rafael Correa, was leading all polls, that I had trouble blogging. The guy was total Chavista and not only that, he was gross in a way only Ecuadorean politicians can be. You know, like El Loco. He actually went walking around taking his belt off, and cracking it against anything he could find, saying that was what he intended to do to the Ecuadoran political system. Obviously, he had some father issues. And some nerve to call President Bush the ‘dim’ one. Speaking of dim. Thwack! Thwack! Dignity be damned.

Now I’m flabbergasted.

And full of joy.

Alvaro Noboa in all his banana glory
Source: Reuters via Yahoo! News

One big banana belly bump for Hugo Chavez
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News

Instead of this communist belt-thwacker, Banana King Alvaro Noboa, who endorsed:

1. Paying Ecuador’s debt
2. Continuing Ecuador’s dollarization
3. Refusing to let Ecuador become a Venezuelan colony
4. Seeking Ecuador’s free trade with the U.S.
5. And what the hey, all the crony pork barrel programs it takes to win voters over

…has unexpectedly taken a powerful, and unexpected lead in today’s presidential race … by four stinking percentage points … in Ecuador!

Oaf that he is, Noboa nevertheless attracted Ecuador’s abundant babes
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News

UPDATE: That lead is widening.

I am so awed. All the polls had his challenger, openly Chavista Rafael Correa, ahead. What a rebuke to Hugo Chavez who had already announced that he had Ecuador in the bag. Sure, I hate Noboa, have hated him for years, he’s an oligarch, the real kind, and didn’t make his money honestly, but like Peru, there’s a such thing as holding one’s one and voting for the least-worst guy. The score, with 40% of the ballots counted, is 27-23, Noboa.

They are headed for a runoff in November, and apparently, Noboa has excellent prospects for taking the other two main candidates’ votes – one, a decent center-leftist, and the other, a fine libertarian. Sure it will be tough for all of them to vote for Noboa, but think of the alternative!

Ecuador was about to fall off the map. Now it’s not! Now it’s showing it’s more Peru and Colombia than Bolivia in spirit.

The U.S. ought to be so pleased at this powerful show from the people in favor of free trade that it goes easy Ecuador’s idiot confiscation of Occidental Petroleum, or at least works something out, so that the free trade talks can get started up again.

Ecuador’s gonna make it. To the finish line. Ecuador will be all right.

Ohmygosh!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: Ecuador’s bonds are going hog-wild, posting their biggest gain in six years overnight. Read it here.

UPDATE: This post-vote commentary, from Discarded Lies is hilarious! LOL!!!!

UPDATE: Boz at Bloggings by Boz has some first rate analysis – and some good poster commentary – in this must-read post here.

UPDATE: I should have seen this earlier – David Sasaki at Global Voices has put together a very fine roundup on Ecuador’s election in this post here.

UPDATE: Here is Goldman Sachs’ take on this election – it’s the same as mine:

Focus: Ecuador

Noboa Pulls Surprising First Round Win and Will Face Populist Correa in a Runoff

Contrary to the indications of all the pre-election opinion surveys, with the votes from 71% of the polling stations tallied, banana tycoon ????lvaro Noboa seems to have pulled a big surprise by winning the first round of the presidential elections with 26.7%, of the vote and will face populist former Finance Minister Correa (22.5%) in a November 26 runoff. Clearly the campaign of Noboa picked up significant momentum in the last few weeks, while Correa’s fierce anti-establishment, anti-market bid might have scared some voters away.

Gilmar Guti????rrez (PSP), the brother of former president Guti????rrez did much better than expected by finishing a strong third with a surprisingly high 16.4% of the vote and his support could be pivotal for the outcome of the runoff. As expected, center-left candidate Le????n Rold????s (15.5%) and center-right Cynthia Viteri (9.9%) did poorly and did not make to the second round.

This is an extremely market positive development because it increases significantly the chance of having a market friendly candidate elected president rather than Rafael Correa, who espouses a clear heterodox and experimental policy platform and a politically radical agenda.

Noboa’s relatively comfortable first-round win was a significant surprise that is likely to further energize his campaign for the runoff when he is likely to benefit from most of Viteri’s vote, from the support of Gilmar Guti????rrez (Noboa’s PRIAN party was close to an electoral alliance with Guti????rrez’s PSP before the election) and part of Rold????s’ electorate. The momentum seems to have shifted in favor of Noboa, which is clearly a market positive event; however, we caution that Noboa still has a relatively high rejection rate which could limit his chances of capturing the presidency.

Despite his populist appeal and captivating anti-establishment rhetoric Correa’s polarizing, uncompromising, and confrontational style is likely to have hurt his cause over the last two weeks.

We anticipate an aggressive and polarizing 6 weeks of campaign until the November 26 runoff and the election outcome is now pretty wide open despite early polls that pointed to an easy second-round victory by Correa. The key for Noboa to pull out the upset victory is, in our assessment, to manage to reduce his still-high rejection rate.

The runoff will be offering voters a choice between two candidates with diametrically opposed personal styles, policies, ideologies, and political platforms. From the voters’ standpoint, the differentiation among the two candidates’ economic and political proposals could hardly be any sharp.

In order to capitalize on the widespread rejection of the highly discredited traditional political establishment, during the campaign Noboa pushed to the background his PRIAN party affiliation (one of the main political affiliations that is part of the traditional political parties that wide segments of the population so strongly rejects) and resorted to some election-related populism of his own by making extensive use o gifts to voters during the campaign amid alluring promises of job creation, affordable housing for the poor, credit for low income families, and heavy public investment in health and education. Noboa is also thought to have exceeded campaign spending limits, which could be subject to a post-election review by the Electoral Court.

However, Noboa offers a much more conventional market/investment friendly approach than Correa by eschewing debt restructuring proposals and welcoming private investment while defending, for instance, a free trade agreement with the United States.

????lvaro Noboa expressed satisfaction with the vote trends showing him winning the first round of the presidential election. Noboa emphasized that his bid is quite different from the platform offered by Correa: “The people will have to choose between the dictatorial posture of Correa, who is the personification of the Cuban regime, and my proposal of transforming Ecuador into countries like Spain, Chile, the United States, or Italy, countries where there is freedom, democracy, and prosperity”. Noboa promised freedom and prosperity for Ecuador by pursuing policies focused on housing, health care, education, and jobs.

Rafael Correa had mentioned on Sunday the possibility of fraud if he were not to win in the first round. We will be monitoring his reaction to the surprising first round win of Noboa and whether he accepts or repudiates the results. The fact that the results seem very consistent with all the exit polls seems to reduce the probability of a widespread challenge of the results.

UPDATE: IBD has an editorial about Ecuador here.