Posted on 10/16/2006 6:35:15 PM PDT by Pokey78
A pro-US banana tycoon will challenge an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez for the presidency of Ecuador in a run-off next month after a bitter first round of voting.
In a race splintered between 11 candidates, the billionaire Alvaro Noboa led with 27% of the vote with more than 70% of ballots counted, according to the country's electoral tribunal. His unexpectedly strong showing relegated the frontrunner, Rafael Correa, a political outsider and fierce critic of the Bush administration, to second place, with 22%.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Alvaro Noboa’s life expectancy is what … too, three weeks at best! I will be greatly surprised it he lives long enough to get to election day.
Headline in the NY Times: "Ecuador Becomes Banana Republic; Has Ties to Bush Administration."
Gee, I never thought I'd be rooting for Alvaro Noboa. In the absence of Chavez as a factor, he would be the last guy I would recommend for the job.
He tried to buy the election last time he ran, promising to give free houses to anyone who voted for him "just fill out this coupon and mail it in". He is close friends of the guy who was impeached for being insane and corrupt, and his previous campaign promise (besides the free houses) was to pardon him and bring him back from exile.
His followers supported him, at least in the previous election, based on the theory that he was so rich he didn't have to be corrupt.
Now, I think his strongest calling card is that he isn't a Chavez clone, but in reality I can't think of any reason he wouldn't support Chavez or why he would support the US either for that matter, he isn't an ideologically driven politician, he just wants to be president. He is a businessman (bananas), and theoretically he should support business-friendly policies including especially the Free Trade treaty. So I guess I'm rooting for Noboa.
I hope he becomes top banana.
That's interesting and worth watching.
According to the link in my reply corea will have a tougher time in the second round because the other major parties will put their support behind Noboa.
Tally him banana and (dodging bullets) GO HOME.
How does a banana grower become a billionaire in South America? Perhaps he's into other sources of income as well?
'Splain to me how you call the second-placer the "front-runner?"
If the United States can legally do anything to help Alvaro Noboa, they should do so. He gives capitalism a chance to stop the advance of socialism in South America.
El Dieboldo está guardando su parte posteriora!
you're kidding, right?
The unfortunate fact is all S. American countries, except for maybe Chile, have large populations of extremely poor citizens who will always be susceptible to the blandishments offered by the never-ending supply of leftist Castro wannabes like Chavez and Morales. Even prosperous Chile elected a socialist p.m. Bachelet. Like the Dems in the U.S. there will always be a section of the population in all countries who believe in getting something for nothing.
The three top income producers in Ecuador are oil, bananas, and shrimp (from on-shore shrimp farms).
The international NGO's organize the tribes to oppose oil production at every turn (the tribes are very political, and have Euro advisors), the international environmental groups like Greenpeace organize and file lawsuits to shut off shrimp farming every chance they get. Its grotesque, really, to see the do-gooders coming into one of the poorest countries on earth and trying to shut off their few sources of income.
The Chavists just succeeded in kicking Occidental Oil out of the country. Oxy was their number one private investor.
Bananas haven't been attacked yet, but they are aced out of the EU market by tariffs.
Right now oil is high, but when the price of oil is low, bananas are their number one income producer. Its weird, but you can see that the Left has a vested interest in keeping poor countries poor.
I read up on the guy ... his family's business is banana growing .. dad died a near-billionaire (long, wonderful epic about the family battle after dad died, leaving the son nearly nothing - in their world, at least) ... but he made his billions in real estate, construction, etc.
But if you look just at CA, you will see multi-multi millionaires who grow a single crop over miles and miles of property ... lotsa money out there in farming if you do it right and start with vast tracts of land (little late for me, and probably you).
Thanks for the info, and your kind reply!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.