Correa Sees Profile Rise in Ecuador Race

Ecuadorean presidential candidate Rafael Correa of the Alliance Pais speaks during a televised debate in Quito, Ecuador, on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006. Correa is the frontrunner according to polls for elections that will be held on Oct. 15. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa R.) (Dolores Ochoa R. - AP)

Maria Teresa Romero, a professor of international studies at the Central University of Venezuela, said Correa is "less dangerous" than Humala, a former army officer under criminal investigation for alleged human rights abuses in Peru. "But just like him, he has radical ideas and would radically change the face of Ecuador," she said.

University of Illinois economics professor Werner Baer, who was on the committee that approved Correa's doctorate, told The Associated Press 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.

Without mentioning Correa by name, President Alvaro Uribe on Saturday asked Ecuador's "neighbors" to "understand that what we have in Colombia is not an insurgency with a noble cause, but terrorism financed by coca," the raw material for cocaine.

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Associated Press writers Joshua Goodman in Bogota, Colombia, Elizabeth M. Nunez in Caracas, Venezuela, and Rick Vecchio in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.