Ecuador's exiled ex-leader not to run in polls

Abdalá Bucaram's return from exile to run for Ecuador's presidency in February 2013 might have been interesting at the very least given his reputed antics and lively personality, but it was not to be. The National Electoral Council (CNE) approved a protestant preacher instead to represent Bucaram's populist PRE (Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano) party and compete with the incumbent Rafael Correa Delgado. The evangelist Nelson Zavala Avellán would run for the presidency and former legislator Denny Cevallos Capurro would be the PRE's vice-presidential candidate, Agence France-Presse reported on 27 November. The CNE rejected Bucaram's candidacy on 19 November, stating that he was not present at his registration. Bucaram was in Panama, and faced possible prosecution for charges relating to financial malfaisance or embezzlement during his presidency in 1996-7. The CNE also obligated Cevallos to renounce her parliamentary position to confirm her candidacy; she was the substitute legislator for Bucarám's son, Abdalá Bucaram Pulley. She told the Ecuadorean daily El Universo that Zavala had the "same political weight" as Bucaram and expressed confidence the PRE ticket would reach the second round. If elected, she said, she would expand the vice-presidency's current social vocation. The CNE has approved  eight presidential candidacies for elections due on 17 February 2013, AFP reported. These were, aside Zavala, President Correa, the banker Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, former president (2003-5) Lucio Gutiérrez Borbua for the centrist Sociedad Patriótica, the leftist and Correa's former energy minister Alberto Acosta Espinosa, two conservatives - Álvaro Noboa and Mauricio Rodas Espinel - and a jurist running as an independent, Normay Wray Reyes. President Correa was apparently ahead in voting intentions.