ECUADOR:A triumphant President Rafael Correa faced off against a weakened opposition yesterday at the start of a battle for control of a new assembly that Ecuadoreans overwhelmingly voted to create in a referendum.
Mr Correa, a left-winger and friend of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, said he wanted a radical overhaul of Ecuadorean politics after he won Sunday's vote in a landslide that should enable him to wrest power from a congress reviled as corrupt.
With 59 per cent of ballots counted, 82 per cent of voters backed Mr Correa's call for an assembly to rewrite the constitution and strip powers from a congress they see as tainted for appointing cronies to state firms and the courts.
"This assembly with broad powers could reform the legislative, judicial and even the executive branch," Mr Correa said of the body whose 130 members will be elected in September. "Let's move ahead with this assembly to have a real representative democracy."
Mr Correa (44), a US-educated economist and former economy minister, wants the new body to make lawmakers spend more time in their small constituencies and to weaken traditional parties that have been pivotal in ousting his three predecessors.
In power for just three months and with little support from traditional parties, he has sustained huge popularity by confronting political elites.
The referendum campaign exposed political fault lines in the world's largest banana exporter. More than half of Ecuador's congressmen were fired last month after opposing Mr Correa's plans for the referendum.
The opposition vowed to fight on, concerned Mr Correa could become too powerful by centralising government around himself as Mr Chavez has done in Venezuela. "We have not lost yet," Gloria Gallardo, one of the 57 fired lawmakers, said. "We will participate in the assembly to defend the free market and our personal freedoms."
Old foes of Mr Correa such as former president Lucio Gutierrez, who is widely popular among the poor, hope to get a strong foothold too. "I will defeat him in the assembly," he said.
Powerful Indian groups, which have helped unseat presidents in the past, could also turn against him if their call for the nationalisation of oil and land is sidelined.
Economists predict investors will welcome Mr Correa's win.
It could defuse the political confrontation and push Ecuadorean bond prices higher because the president is expected to feel less pressure to implement radical policies such as slashing debt payments to maintain his approval ratings.
The win is expected to allow him to push ahead with initiatives such as ending the lease on a US military base, renegotiating oil deals and restructuring the national debt. - (Reuters)