The first round of the Ecuadorian presidential election held on February 7 was engulfed in chaos and controversies. But it also saw the overhaul of the political map — and an end to the short-lived dominance of the country’s main neoliberal actors.

The top-placed candidate was left-winger Andrés Arauz, close to former president Rafael Correa and his “Citizens’ Revolution”: he won nearly 33 percent support and his Union for Hope (UNES) coalition became the largest force in the National Assembly. Meanwhile the alliance of the two traditional conservative parties Creating Opportunities party (CREO) and the Social Christian Party (PSC) headed by the country’s most notorious corporate banker, Guillermo Lasso, obtained less than 20 percent — a loss of more than half of its strength since 2017. Yet more surprising was the emergence of two newcomers — Carlos “Yaku” Pérez of the indigenist Pachakutik party (19.5 percent) and Xavier Hervas of the liberal Democratic Left (16 percent).

In the parallel election for the National Assembly, Arauz’s UNES obtained forty-nine seats (out of a total of a hundred thirty-seven), while the CREO-PSC coalition won thirty seats, Pachakutik twenty-seven, and Democratic Left eighteen. Outgoing neoliberal president Lenín Moreno’s Country Alliance party, rocked by massive protests against IMF-backed reforms in fall 2019, scored less than 1.5 percent and was eliminated from parliament.