QUITO: Ecuadoreans vote for president on Sunday in a ballot expected to hand incumbent Rafael Correa a new term as polls show Correa leading his closest rival by more than 35 percentage points.
Left-wing Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is in position to win Sunday’s elections with a land slide victory. A close ally of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is strongly against capitalism and Free Market economy. The most “un-wanted Man” for Western world— WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did not find any other place to live freely except the embassy of Ecuador in England.
Correa is the first Ecuadorian president to complete his mandate in over sixteen years. The Andean country of 15 million people saw seven different presidents between 1996 and 2006. A US-trained economist, Correa was confirmed as president in 2009, in elections spurred by a new constitution.
Western Media calls him Left-wing Activist. He bycotted the Organization of American States summit in a show of solidarity with Cuba andcalled summit as ”imperialist interests”.
Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado was on born 6 April 1963) and he holds a Ph.D. degree in Economy. Rafael Correa comes from a working-class family who used to live in Guayaquil. In his doctoral dissertation, titled “Three Essays on Contemporaneous Latin American Development”, Correa affirmed essentially that the structural reforms instituted in Latin America beginning in the 1980s, failed as driver for growth in the region. By means of econometric analysis, Correa argued that the reforms did not spur growth and also that the liberalization of the labor markets reduced the productivity of Latin American countries.
An economist educated in Ecuador, Belgium and the United States, he was elected President in late 2006 and took office in January 2007. In December 2008, he declared Ecuador’s national debt illegitimate, based on the argument that it was odious debt contracted by corrupt and despotic prior regimes. He announced that the country would default on over $3 billion worth of bonds; he then pledged to fight creditors in international courts and succeeded in reducing the price of outstanding bonds by more than 60%. He brought Ecuador into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas in June 2009.
The case of offering asylum to Assange in Ecuador Embassy in London shows that Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador is very clear about his “Philosophical Divide” with western world.On 19 June 2012, the Ecuadorian foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, announced that Assange had applied for political asylum and that the government was analysing his request, and that Assange was in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The Metropolitan Police Service stated that he was in breach of one of the conditions of his bail and could therefore be lawfully arrested. On 23 June, Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, recalled his Ambassador to the UK back to Quito, to discuss the situation. On 24 June, Assange said he would go to Sweden if provided with a diplomatic guarantee that he would not be turned over to the US. Ecuadorian officials at the London embassy offered to allow Swedish prosecutors to question Assange there. This offer was rejected by the Swedish.
On 16 August, Ricardo Patiño, the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, stated in a press conference that the Ecuadorian government was granting Assange political asylum. Patiño cited concerns that Assange might be extradited to the US, which could conceivably lead to his execution or indefinite incarceration. The British Foreign Office stated that it was “disappointed” at Ecuador’s decision and that it remained under a binding agreement to extradite Assange to Sweden in spite of the decision taken by Ecuador. On 16 August, the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said that the UK would not allow Assange safe passage out of the country. Rafael Correa said on 18 August, 2012 that Assange could stay at the embassy indefinitely.
