Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa urged his opponents Monday to join his efforts to build a more just society, saying the overwhelming victory of his constitutional referendum gives him a broad mandate.
“Thank God my triumph was so convincing and so crushing, beyond all our expectations,” he told international reporters at a breakfast. “Let’s hope they reflect and let the country advance peacefully.”
With 90 percent of ballots counted, 64 percent of Ecuadorean voters approved the measure, according to official results. Correa got the majority he needed in all but two of Ecuador’s 24 provinces.
The 20th constitution in the history of this chronically unstable nation considerably broadens Correa’s powers and will let him run for two more consecutive terms, consolidating what he calls a citizen’s revolution.
Although nowhere near as radical as similar projects in Venezuela and Bolivia, critics complain it gives Correa far too much control over the economy and the judicial and legislative branches.
The new constitution also gives the government greater fiscal control over local and provincial authorities, eroding their power over public works projects and bureaucracies.
Even in Guayaquil — a center of opposition that is Ecuador’s largest city — the constitution was approved by 51 percent.
Correa, 45, said Monday that his government must now determine the cost of new programs the constitution enshrines, including pensions for stay-at-home mothers and free education for all through college.
Ecuador gets substantial oil income as Latin America’s fifth-largest oil producer, but Correa on Monday repeated his threat to reduce payments on Ecuador’s US$10 billion foreign debt if domestic priorities are more pressing.
Correa seeks a social safety net for the 38 percent of Ecuadoreans who live below the poverty line. He also has said the document will help to eradicate a political class that made Ecuador one of Latin America’s most corrupt countries.
Presidential and congressional elections are expected as early as February, and a Correa presidency is now possible through 2017. But the president was coy Monday when asked if he would run, saying it would be up to his Alianza Pais movement.
“I’m only here to serve my homeland. I’m not interested in power,” he told the foreign correspondents.
Correa is expected to swiftly overhaul the judiciary, the Central Bank and other key institutions, giving the U.S.- and European-trained economist greater liberty to fashion what he calls a “new political model.” Soaring oil prices have helped him build it.
Some in Correa’s badly splintered and debilitated opposition contend he’s creating a Venezuela-style autocracy.
But Correa has kept the Venezuelan president at arm’s length. And unlike Chavez and Morales, Correa has not moved to nationalize telecommunications and electrical utility companies.