QUITO, Ecuador, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Ecuadorians headed to the polls Sunday to choose a new president to succeed the nation's interim leader, who took the reins of the troubled nation following a coup more than two years ago.
Eleven candidates are vying to win the leadership of the small, South American country of nearly 13.5 million people bordering Colombia and Peru. But with four locked in a technical tie, according to local reports, a scheduled second round of elections will determine who leads Ecuador for the next four years.
According to Ecuadorian law, if no candidate wins a majority of Sunday's ballots, then the top two vote getters will face each other in a run off set for Nov. 24.
Current President Gustavo Noboa, who was selected by Congress following the January 2000 ousting of Jamil Mahuad, has decided to not run.
While the outcome is still uncertain, the four leading contenders hoping to advance to the second round are Alvaro Noboa (no relation to the current president), Lucio Gutirrez, who supported the fall of Mahuad, Rodrigo Borja, a former president and moderate and Leon Roldos, a socialist and lawyer.
As officials continue to count the ballots, all four men are thought to be in a technical tie with less than 20 percent of the vote each.
Local media reported scattered setbacks in the day's voting.
While heavily armed were present at many voting station, Ecuadorian TV reported delays at one center where electoral machines were said to have been set on fire. Other stations reported not having enough ballots for the voters on hand.
The Ecuadorian Supreme Electoral Court however said those problems were rectified and voting continued without other major incident.
In a nation slightly smaller than the state of Nevada, corruption and poverty are among the keys issues the main presidential hopefuls have vowed to tackle if elected, as well the nation's troubled economy, which has been beset by years of recession.
