A Moreno victory would come as a relief for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange after Guillermo Lasso vowed to remove him from the Ecuadorean embassy in London if he won the runoff.
"All of us!" he told flag-waving supporters, flanked by running mate and current vice-president, Jorge Glas, and a beaming outgoing President Rafael Correa, before breaking into several songs. After Moreno failed to win February's first round of voting outright, Correa alluded to an old constitutional rule that could be used to dissolve both congress and the executive branch and call for new elections if a new leader threatened to make the country "ungovernable".
A nail-biting election in Ecuador appeared to end Sunday with leftist candidate Lenín Moreno winning the presidency over conservative Guillermo Lasso. Ecuador went to the polls in a second round presidential elections.
Ecuador plunged into crisis on Sunday night after a disputed presidential vote, with leftist candidate Lenin Moreno headed to a narrow victory and his conservative opponent denouncing the results as fraudulent.
But other analysts say Lasso has momentum, with his campaign using the democratic breakdown in Venezuela to rally Ecuadorans who fear the Correa government is on the same path. In proclaiming these results the CNE did not officially award the victory to Moreno.
In Guayaquil, where Mr Lasso is from, supporters shouted "Get out Correa!" and threw sticks at riot police in formation before being pushed back with tear gas.
Close to 12.5 million Ecuadoreans in the country, along with nearly 400,000 emigrants around the world, were eligible to vote in Sunday's election. An exit poll showed Guillermo Lasso in the lead, but state media later declared Lenin Moreno as the victor.
U.S. security adviser McMaster says North Korea behavior 'can't continue'
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Moreno's predecessor Rafael Correa introduced legislation in 2016 banning public officials from having assets or capital in tax havens, giving them one year's amnesty to re-introduce the money into Ecuador.
Mr Assange has not left Ecuador's embassy, tucked behind Harrods in Knightsbridge, since he walked through the door seeking political asylum in June 2012.
Assange has been holed up in the tiny embassy for almost five years, protected by Ecuador's current leftist government from extradition to Sweden over rape allegations.
According to the official results, at the beginning of this day and with 96.51 percent of the votes counted, Moreno has 51.12 percent of the valid ballots, while Lasso is favored by 48.88 percent of voters.
"I'm warning the world that in Ecuador procedures are being violated, and they're trying to swear in an illegitimate government on May 24", he said on Monday.
In a recent interview, Lasso told the Miami Herald: "We will ask Mr. Assange, very politely, to leave our embassy, in absolute compliance with global conventions and protocols, . we vow to take all the steps necessary so that another embassy will take him in and protect his rights".
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