Lenin Moreno Garcés, a paraplegic who served as vice president of Ecuador from 2007 to 2013, may become his nation’s next president. Moreno has been selected by the nation’s ruling party, Alianza Pais, as its next leader following the announcement that Ecuador’s current president, Rafael Correa, will not seek a third term in 2017.

Moreno became a paraplegic in 1998 after two men robbed him in a grocery store parking lot and one of them shot him in the back. A lawyer by profession, Moreno’s term as vice-president took Ecuador’s people with disabilities from being barely regarded as citizens to people receiving housing and economic assistance, including guaranteed social security from their government

Moreno’s work earned him a nomination for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize and an appointment as the United Nations Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility in 2013. “We have taken enormous steps in Ecuador, but much work remains,” wrote Moreno for Americas Quarterly in 2012. “Our goal is for no disabled person to be denied comprehensive attention.”

The 63-year-old can perhaps finish that work if he’s elected with his running mate and successor, current vice-president Jorge Glas. Early polls suggest he is a strong candidate for president with 35 per cent support against a splintered opposition. However, Ecuadorian voters are hungry for change given that their country’s oil-dependent economy currently finds itself in a recession.

Moreno is well aware of this, calling for unity and emphasizing just how hard it will be for his party to be re-elected at last weekend’s leadership convention. “We need to be united brothers, because the path is tough, tough, tough,” he said.