FOXNews.com - Polls: Banana Magnate Leads in Ecuador

Polls: Banana Magnate Leads in Ecuador

Monday, November 06, 2006

By GONZALO SOLANO, Associated Press Writer

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QUITO, Ecuador — Banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa was building momentum toward a victory over leftist economist Rafael Correa in Ecuador's Nov. 26 presidential runoff, three polls showed Monday.

According to the national surveys, the country's richest man leads Correa, a former finance minister, by a 15- to 19-point margin.

Under Ecuadorean election law, Monday was the last day polls could be published locally.

Noboa is an old-style populist, who has pledged to use his personal wealth and influence among rich foreigners to spur investment and create jobs. With a Bible under his arm and frequent references to God in his speeches, he has crisscrossed the small Andean nation handing out computers, wheel chairs, medicine and money.

Noboa was the top vote-getter in the Oct. 15 elections, winning 26.8 percent. Correa was second with 22.8 percent. The rest of the votes were spread among 11 other candidates.

A survey of 5,062 people, taken Oct. 27-30, by the Cedatos-Gallup firm showed Noboa favored by 49 percent compared to 33 percent for Correa. Another 13 percent said they planned to cast blank or spoiled ballots for the vote, which is obligatory. The remaining 5 percent expressed no preference.

Pollster Informe Confidencial showed Noboa leading Correa 47-32 percent based on a survey of 1,300 people on Oct. 28-29. The Market polling firm found Noboa had 49 percent compared with 30 percent for Correa in its Oct. 27-29 survey of 3,960 people.

All the polls had margins of error of 3 percentage points and none were paid for by an outside client.

Noboa made a surprising surge in the final days of the first-round campaign, and his first-place finish prompted cries of fraud from Correa, who had been considered the front-runner before the election.

Since the vote, Correa has backed off somewhat from his more radical suggestions, which included a threat to default on Ecuador's foreign debt to pay for social programs for the poor.

He also has tried to distance himself from Venezuelan leftist President Hugo Chavez, whom he earlier described as an honored friend.

Correa has echoed Chavez's anti-imperialist rhetoric directed at the Bush administration. But if elected, he says he will seek friendly relations with Washington, albeit following a"sovereign"foreign policy.

"We will condemn the errors that the whole world recognizes, like the invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist,"Correa said last week.