QUITO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Ecuadorian ruling party candidate Lenin Moreno won Sunday's presidential election runoff, the National Electoral Council (CNE) said on Tuesday.
Moreno garnered 51.16 percent of valid votes while opposition challenger Guillermo Lasso grasped 48.84 percent, with 99.65 percent of votes counted, CNE President Juan Pablo Pozo said at a press conference.
The CNE confirmed that Moreno, candidate of the ruling PAIS Alliance, will succeed President Rafael Correa.
"I will be the president of all Ecuadorians. We will continue...with the Citizen Revolution," Moreno said following the announcement of his victory, referring to the socialist movement driven by Correa.
"We will continue with this process which has radically changed the situation, principally, of Ecuador's poorest people. We will continue the transformation of Ecuador, which began 10 years ago under the leadership of Rafael (Correa). We will continue, but there will certainly be changes for the better," said the president-elect.
Besides the pledge of carrying on the decade-long "Citizens Revolution", Moreno also would bring a different governance style from his predecessor, analysts said.
Moreno was born on March 19, 1953 to a family of teachers in Nuevo Rocafuerte in the Amazonian province of Orellana.
His family moved to Quito when Moreno was three years old, where he pursued his studies later, mainly in the domains of public administration, medicine and psychology.
Moreno has used a wheelchair ever since 1998 when he was shot in the back at point-blank range during a robbery and paralyzed from the waist down.
Surviving the assault, he gained a new perspective on life and embarked on a career as a motivational speaker and author, providing speeches professing joy, solidarity and love, and writing 10 books about humor and personal motivation.
As a sports fan, Moreno particularly likes football, basketball, tennis and swimming. He is also a keen singer.
Married and fathered to three daughters, Moreno was Correa's vice president from 2007 to 2013, in charge of several areas of social and economic policies, including the policies for the disabled.
Under Moreno's watch, disabled people received medical attention from doctors who travelled to the country's furthest region, while the most severely disabled began receiving a monthly subsidy.
This was backed up by the delivery of social housing to the disabled and a new law providing incentives for companies to hire them.
The plan saw Moreno nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 and he was named the UN's Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility in 2013, for which he left his job as vice president.
In September 2016, he resigned from his UN position after three years' service to become candidate for the PAIS Alliance.
Moreno has defined himself as a person open to dialogue and consensus while he has promised to govern with tolerance and respect.
"I am coming to run the cleanest government Ecuador has seen, I will eradicate corruption...I will tolerate no act of corruption," he has promised.
Among his campaign pledges, Moreno has vowed to create 250,000 jobs a year and build 325,000 homes annually, simplify the tax system, promote young entrepreneurs, and institute a pension plan for elderly people not covered by social security.
