Correa Delgado, Rafael Vicente

Correa Delgado, Rafael Vicente, 1963–, Ecuadorian economist and political leader, president of Ecuador (2007–), b. Guayaquil. A leftist economist (Ph.D Univ. of Illinois, 2001), he served briefly as minister of finance (2006) under interim President Alfredo Palacio before running as populist reformer in the 2006 presidential election. A friend of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, Correa called for constitutional reform, restructuring Ecuador's foreign debt, antipoverty programs, and anticorruption measures. Although Correa placed second in the first round of voting, he won a solid majority after a runoff against businessman Álvaro Noboa. In Apr., 2007, he won a referendum on calling a national assembly to rewrite the constitution.