Rafael Correa yesterday won a third term as Ecuador's president with an impressive 63% of the vote on Sunday. Guillermao Lasso, a former Correa supporter, had 21% and right-wing candidate Lucio Gutierrez had 6%. Correa has been considered a populist who has dropped the poverty rate in Ecuador by five percentage points by lavish spending on social programs backed by oil exports mainly to China. He has taken criticism from the left for attacks on press liberties and for not supporting locals opposed to heavy mining in the country. International critics in the west have lambasted him as a populist strongman when he defaulted on $3.9 billion in foreign investment obligations when he first took office and when he granted asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange last year.
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