QUITO, Ecuador – A pro-U.S. billionaire and a leftist economist who admires Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez headed to a runoff campaign Monday that threatens to aggravate political instability in Ecuador, where the last three presidents have been driven from power by street protests.
Alvaro Noboa, 55, a banana magnate who is Ecuador's wealthiest man, and Rafael Correa, an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Latin America, will face each other in a Nov. 26 runoff after neither won an outright victory in Sunday's election.
Noboa won 26.7 percent of the vote to 22.5 percent for Correa, based on 70 percent of the ballots counted so far. Eleven other candidates split the rest.
The totals were based on a computerized “quick count” of paper ballots that
stalled before dawn Monday due to technical failures by E-Vote, the Brazilian company contracted by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. E-Vote apologized for the delay Monday and said it was working to resolve the problem. The tribunal has 10 days to complete the official count.
Correa had been favored to lead Sunday's voting and didn't take well to being edged out by Noboa, who had been rising fast in pre-election polls. Correa complained he had been robbed of votes that would have given him a first-round victory, but presented no proof.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20061016-1909-ecuador-election.htmlThe vote count stalling is exactly the same way it happened in Peru where after the stall cleared the US backed candidate was declared the winner. Peru's new president was in DC last week pushing to finalize a free trade agreement with the WH. 
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