Curbing outbreaks

The vaccines will be crucial to helping the country overcome one of the worst outbreaks of COVID-19 in the region and get the economy moving. Ecuador had more than 358,100 infections and more than 17,600 deaths by Sunday, Johns Hopkins University data shows.

"Everything will depend on two factors. One, how quickly the population can be vaccinated. Two, what level of external and internal confidence can be generated about government policies so that this positively impacts investors, consumers and financiers," said Pablo Lucio Paredes, director of the Institute of Economics at the San Francisco de Quito University.

Paredes believes that Lasso's election victory will encourage domestic and foreign investors.

"Under this scenario, the latest IMF forecasts of GDP growth of 2.5 percent should be surpassed with a trend of over 4 percent," he said.

Across the border in Peru, the uncertainties stem from a political crisis in which four presidents have run the country in the past three years.

The emergence of Castillo and Fujimori as the final candidates in the runoff elections was seen as something of a surprise.

"The (success) of Keiko (Fujimori) and of Castillo was something that was not even on the radar until the week before elections," said Ramon Abasolo, a lawyer and political analyst in the capital Lima. "It is difficult to know if the political crisis will be over soon. The new congress is very much fragmented, and there is no party with a majority that can lead to a consensus."

Peru, with about 33 million people, had more than 1.69 million COVID-19 infections, with over 56,700 deaths by Sunday, Johns Hopkins University data shows.

The author is a freelance writer for China Daily.