Ecuador candidate Gonzalez says will use $2.5 billion in reserves to help economy

By Alexandra Valencia

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuadorean presidential candidate Luisa Gonzalez, who has led polls ahead of a Sunday vote riven by the murder of one of her competitors, said on Tuesday she will use $2.5 billion from international reserves to shore up the struggling economy if elected.

Anti-corruption candidate Fernando Villavicencio, a long-time antagonist of Gonzalez's mentor, former President Rafael Correa, was gunned down leaving an event in Quito last week, highlighting deteriorating security in the Andean country and prompting his erstwhile competitors to pledge to fight crime.

Ecuador has leaned on international financing since its economy was battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The country concluded a credit agreement for $6.5 billion with the International Monetary Fund at the end of last year and this month took out a $500 million loan with the Inter-American Development Bank.

A lack of employment has motivated many young people to emigrate, even via dangerous routes, in search of opportunities.

Ecuador had some $6.96 billion in international reserves as of June, according to central bank data.

"I'll bring $2.5 billion to inject into the national economy, money that isn't generating anything, which is stored and not generating a cent, to guarantee the payments to bondholders," Gonzalez, 45, told Reuters in an interview.

Some $500 million would go toward police arms and vehicles, she said, with equal amounts for health and education, small business loans and infrastructure.

An expansion of debt with organization like the IMF would need to be well thought out, Gonzalez said.

"I know how to invest it," she said. "We won't pay a debt to die, so we are left in unemployment, so we are left without medicines."

"The debts that we have, the bond payments are planned. The debt must of course be honored and for the rest we'll look according to expiry dates."

A lawyer and former lawmaker, Gonzalez has led polling with about 30% of voting intention. No polls have been published since Villavicencio's murder.

Gonzalez has pledged to bring back social policies reminiscent of Correa's decade in power.

The former president left office in 2017 and was later sentenced to eight years in prison on corruption charges. Correa has lived in Belgium since he left office and Gonzalez has denied she would pardon him if elected.

"We are going to reactivate the economy with public investment in infrastructure. Efficient public investment attracts foreign investment, activates the economy and pushes the private sector to create dignified employment," she said.

Improvements to security cannot just be focused on security forces, she added, but must take into account social factors.

"When poverty rises, unemployment rises, violence rises," she said.

Ecuador and neighboring Colombia must work together to control their border, a cocaine trafficking hub, Gonzalez added.

Correa would serve as one of her advisors, she said, and she has already asked him to meet with Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

"We are advancing in conversations for joint work," she said, adding she has asked European Union ambassadors in Ecuador for help with technology and intelligence to fight crime.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Marguerita Choy)