Ecuador Elects Left-wing Ex-coup Leader

The people of Ecuador have elected a former coup leader who has pledged to fight corruption as their sixth president in six years, results showed today.

Lucio Gutierrez, 45, won 54.3% of yesterday's runoff vote, beating the 45.7% awarded to his billionaire rival in the bitter election campaign, Alvaro Noboa.

Mr Gutierrez's supporters included a small Marxist party, radical Indian groups and leftwing unions, leading his opponents to fear his stance would scare away potential investors.

But since he won the first round of elections on October 20, Mr Gutierrez has toned down his rhetoric and described himself as "centre-left". He travelled to New York to woo Wall Street investors, and softened his opposition to the US military's use of Ecuador's Manta airbase for operations targeting the drugs trade.

Mr Gutierrez insisted during the campaign that he was not part of the trend of leftwing, anti-globalisation presidents who have recently come to power in Venezuela and Brazil. Mr Naboa had accused him of being a wife beater who would become a dictator when his economic policies failed.

Mr Gutierrez defended himself during the campaign by saying: "I am not a communist. I am a profoundly Christian man who respects private property and human rights."

In a television interview last night, Mr Gutierrez also sought to reassure Ecuadorean and international financial circles that his election was not a threat to investors.

"I want to give the greatest of assurances to the national productive sector, the national financial sector and the international financial sector," he said.

In Washington, state department spokeswoman Anne Marks said the Bush administration wanted to "congratulate Ecuador on the completion of what appears to be a free, fair and transparent election. We are pleased to see democracy working in Ecuador".

Mr Noboa, 52, controls a banana and shipping empire that includes 110 companies, and had vowed that his election would have attracted millions of dollars in foreign investment from his contacts in international financial circles, creating jobs for Ecuador's unemployed masses. He counts members of the Kennedy family and Hollywood actors such as Charlton Heston among his friends.

But the election showed that Ecuadoreans were more drawn to Mr Gutierrez's image as a strong leader who would clean up government.

"I voted for Lucio because he is going to get rid of corruption, and I think he is going to help the poor, those who have nothing," said Maria Alban, a 35-year-old street vendor. "I just hope he is not like the other politicians who offer everything and don't keep any promise."

Mr Gutierrez was making headlines even before his election bid: he spent six months in a military prison after leading a group of disgruntled junior officers and 5,000 Indian protesters on a coup in January 2000 that forced out a highly unpopular president suspected of corruption.

Ecuador's two-decade-old democracy has suffered through trying times in recent years. Since 1996, this small Andean nation of 12 million people has had five presidents. Two of them were driven from office in the midst of political and economic upheaval.

There are signs that Mr Gutierrez could alienate his supporters on the left. They opposed the decision in 1999 to make the US dollar the country's official currency. Mr Gutierrez, however, has since dropped his opposition to this policy.