With 97.38 percent of the ballots counted, both candidates obtained the majority of the votes according to Ecuador's National Electoral Council. | Photo: TeleSUR

Quito, February 8 (RHC)-- The candidate for the Unión por la Esperanza (UNES), Andres Arauz and the indigenous candidate Yaku Perez will face off on April 11 in Ecuador to define the next president of the country.

With 97.38 percent of the ballots counted, both candidates obtained the majority of votes according to data from the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Ecuador.  Arauz captured 32.31 of the valid votes, while Perez was left with 19.76 according to CNE's web page.

Throughout the election day, Yaku Perez and CREO's center-right candidate Guillermo Lasso were exchanging positions as the night and the count progressed, which has brought a surprise in the result as all polls had given Arauz and Lasso as the contenders for a second round.

However, in the last hours, Perez took a small lead that allowed him to consolidate his second place in the first round, while Lasso obtained 19.62% -- a difference of less than one percentage point that was still reversible.

As none of the candidates obtained 40 percent of the votes, Arauz and Perez will face each other in the runoff election on April 11th.