Leftist Chavez ally leads in Ecuador vote

QUITO, Ecuador, Nov 27 (Reuters) Ecuador's leftist Rafael Correa, an ally of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, appeared to have clinched Sunday's presidential run-off election after exit polls and one quick count showed he surged past his banana magnate rival to victory.

An election win by the former finance minister Correa would bolster Chavez's campaign to forge an alliance of left-wing governments to counter US influence and free-trade policies with his own brand of socialist proposals.

His rival Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador's wealthiest man, rejected poll results and said he could demand a revision of the ballots if necessary after official results are released later on last night.

Correa, a US-trained economist who worried Wall Street with talk of debt renegotiation, had positioned himself as an outsider to woo Ecuadoreans frustrated with poverty and years of instability in the world's top banana exporter.

''We accept this victory with dignity and humility,'' Correa told supporters in Quito. ''We are just instruments of the power of the people.'' A quick count carried out by local election observation group Participacion Cuidadana gave Correa 56.9 percent and Noboa 43.1 percent with 63 percent out of their sample of the ballot boxes nationwide.

The count had a margin of error of 1.95 percentage points and was a representative sample of voting results from polling stations nationwide.

Three other exit polls showed similar results.

Correa, 43, rattled Washington with vows to oppose a US free trade pact and a local US military base. Noboa, a banana magnate, had promised closer US ties and market-friendly policies to draw investment.

In second-round campaigning Correa toned down his aggressive calls to dissolve the discredited Congress and take on Ecuador's political elite, which worried many centrist voters looking for more stability. He had been rewarded with a steady rise in the polls.

POPULIST CAMPAIGNING Noboa, 56, whose family made a fortune from bananas, lured voters with a populist campaign mixing handouts of cash, wheelchairs and computers with religion and offers of jobs and 300,000 houses a year for the poor.

The tycoon, who hobnobs with the world's jet set, was on his third run at the presidency and said the experience running businesses ranging from coffee to construction would help him manage the economy.

''I have won and I will keep fighting for the poor from the presidency,'' a visibly irate Noboa told local television.

After 1999 debt default crisis and street protests by Indian leaders earlier this year, voters were debating which candidate offered remedies to the political turmoil that has forced out three presidents in the last 10 years.

Political analysts said Noboa's Institutional Renewal Party for National Action will manage to forge a majority alliance in Congress after his lawmakers won 28 out of 100 seats in October's legislative election.

That could make it difficult for Correa to push through his promised reforms if official results confirm his victory.

Correa has no representatives in Congress and an inexperienced political movement.

Ecuador's last elected president, former coup leader and soldier Lucio Gutierrez, was toppled in April last year by street protests and lawmakers who charged him with meddling with the independence of the Supreme Court.

Reuters DH VP0530