President Rafael Correa in one of his trademark indigenous shirts.

Four days from general elections in Ecuador, four pollster companies confirm the victory of Rafael Correa, presidential candidate running for re-election on behalf of the party Alianza PAIS.

Paulina Recalde, Director of the pollster, Perfiles de Opinión (Opinion Profiles) informed this Thursday that the current Ecuadorian president has 62% of the intended vote, followed by blank votes at 15%, and trailing behind at 9% is the conservative candidate, Guillermo Lasso of the CREO party.

Behind Lasso are null votes, 4%; Lucio Gutiérrez, 4%; Alberto Acosta, 3%; Álvaro Noboa, 2%; Mauricio Rodas, 1%; and with less than 1% are candidates Norman Wray and Nelson Zavala.

Ecuadorians will vote on February 17 for their president and vice-president, as well as for 137 members of the National Assembly. Electoral campaigning will be allowed from January 4 until February 14.

Under the new constitution adopted by referendum in 2008, candidates must be “promoted in a fair and equitable way”. The Ecuadorian National Electoral Council has therefore established an electoral spending limit of US$1,749,000 for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

This amount doesn’t include media and billboard advertising, as that is assigned to each candidate from a state budget.

In the current National Assembly women represent 32.26% of the members.