CANDIDATE TAKES ANTI-U.S. TACK

He Leads Race To Be President Of Ecuador

QUITO, Ecuador Ecuador's front-runner in Sunday's presidential
election has rattled Wall Street with anti-U.S. rhetoric and
nationalist pledges torn from the playbook of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Rafael Correa's surge in the polls from a distant third a month ago
to first place caused investors to dump Ecuadorean bonds last week
amid fears the former economy minister would move the South American
nation into a leftist alliance with Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia.

U.S. officials and Chavez -- apparently wary of tilting the race with
ill-advised comments -- have been silent about the rise of Correa,
43, who last month called President Bush a "tremendously dimwitted"
president and vowed to oppose trade talks with Washington.

With 13 presidential candidates competing Sunday, a Nov. 26 runoff
election is likely. To win in the first round in Ecuador, a candidate
must either get an outright majority of the valid votes, or receive
at least 40 percent while the rest of the field trails by at least 10
percentage points.

Forceful and dynamic, Correa has increasingly attracted undecided
voters who see him as a fresh face in a field of old-time
politicians. But the latest polls show his closest rival --
billionaire banana magnate Alvaro Noboa -- is gaining as well and now
has about 23 percent support to Correa's 26 percent.

"There's no way of denying that a Correa victory in the second round
would be a very significant assault against Washington's Latin
American policy," said Larry Birns, director of the Council on
Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. "And it would certainly bring in a
new recruit for the Chavez bloc at a time when that bloc very much needs one."

Correa's candidacy follows that of other Chavez allies, including
President Evo Morales of Bolivia, elected last year on a platform of
opposing U.S.-backed anti-drug efforts in the region, and Ollanta
Humala, the nationalist who came close to winning Peru's presidency this year.

Birns said the Bush administration doesn't want to "slam the door in
Correa's face," or inadvertently help his candidacy with a response
that might fuel already strong anti-U.S. sentiment.

For his part, Chavez could hurt Correa's campaign by openly backing him.

Chavez has been accused of meddling in elections this year in Peru,
Mexico and Nicaragua, and "his backing can be the kiss of death to a
candidate," Birns said.

That was the case with Peru's Humala, who won the most votes earlier
this year in the first round, but was handily defeated in the June
runoff by center-left President Alan Garcia, who adroitly painted his
rival as a radical Chavez pawn.

Correa, who has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois,
opposes resuming stalled free-trade talks with Washington and says he
would not extend a treaty scheduled to expire in 2009 that lets the
U.S. military use the Manta air base for drug surveillance flights.

He also wants to cut ties to international lending institutions,
including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and has
threatened a moratorium on foreign debt payments unless foreign
bondholders agree to lower Ecuador's debt service by half.

University of Illinois economics professor Werner Baer, who was on
the committee that approved Correa's doctorate, said last month that
his former pupil's anti-U.S. spiel was probably a ploy to get votes.

"I doubt that he would be virulently anti-American like Chavez," Baer
said, predicting Correa would likely follow the more moderate lead of
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil.

Correa has been largely ignored by neighboring governments.

But he did raise hackles last week in Colombia, when he said of that
country's main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia: "I am not going to call them terrorists. I believe they are
guerrillas."

Correa later said his remarks "in absolutely no way imply sympathy
for that group."

He still received an indirect rebuke from Colombia.