Why Ecuador’s Sunday Vote Matters for the Bond Market: QuickTake

A record 16 candidates are on the ballot in the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election on Feb. 7. But coming just months after the nation’s 11th default or debt rescheduling since its founding in 1830, the vote comes down to a binary choice: whether to accept potentially harsh economic reforms, softened by loans from multilateral banks like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, with the goal of integration with nearby countries and freer trade with the U.S.; or to return to a socialist Venezuela-style model of heavy government involvement in the economy. Those stakes mean the election will be watched beyond Ecuador’s borders, particularly in the bond market.

Guillermo Lasso, 65, is a career banker from the coastal hub Guayaquil and the favored candidate of conservatives. Andres Arauz, who turns 36 the day before the vote, is a left-wing economist.