Supporters of Guillermo Lasso, presidential candidate from the CREO party, and other opposition supporters stand outside the electoral council (CNE) headquarters, in Quito, Ecuador.
Quito: Ecuador's presidential election will go to an April runoff between leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno and ex-banker Guillermo Lasso, the electoral body said after a nail-biter first round over the weekend.
Moreno needed 40 percent of valid votes and a 10 percentage-point difference over his nearest rival to win outright. He was the clear leader of Sunday's election, pocketing 39.21 percent of valid votes versus 28.34 percent for Lasso, with 95.3 percent of votes counted.
With the Andean country on tenterhooks and the opposition protesting for prompt results, the electoral body said the results could not change although it was waiting for all ballots to be counted before officially proclaiming a second round.
"No, it's not possible," electoral council president Juan Pablo Pozo told reporters, when asked if a runoff could be avoided. "But we have to wait for official results to be 100 percent."
Opposition protesters had massed in front of the electoral council headquarters in mountainous capital Quito since Sunday to denounce what they say were fraud attempts. The government retorted they were inciting violence and urged patience.
Ecuador's fragmented opposition is now expected to close ranks around Lasso in a runoff amid anger over an economic downturn and a series of corruption scandals, potentially ending a decade of leftist rule in Ecuador.
Should Ecuador move to the right with a second-round victory for Lasso, it would follow on the heels of Argentina, Brazil and Peru which have all swerved away from the left as a China-led commodities boom ended.
Lasso has campaigned on a platform to revive the economy, which is dependent on exports of oil, flowers and shrimp, by slashing taxes, fostering foreign investment and creating a million jobs in four years.
He has also vowed to remove Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy in London and denounce Venezuela's Socialist government.
Some Lasso supporters honked their horns in Quito, but others were more cautious.
"We can't celebrate until they've officially announced a second round," said Maria Isabel Pino, 36, in the coastal city of Guayaquil.
