The people of Ecuador are rising up to refound their country as a pluri-national homeland for all. This inspiring movement, with Ecuador's indigenous peoples at its heart, is part of the revolution spreading across the Americas, laying the groundwork for a new, fairer, world. Ecuador Rising aims to bring news and analysis of events unfolding in Ecuador to english speakers.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Ecuador Votes Constituent Assembly

Quito, Apr 15 (Prensa Latina) Ecuadorians are ready on Sunday to vote in a referendum about President Rafael Correa`s request to0 establish a Constituent Assembly with full powers.

The electors go to the polls after an intensive campaign in favor of "yes" that involved social and political movements that voted on November 26 for the option to change, proposed by Correa.

Prohibition had been established all over the country since Friday, while the Supreme Electoral Tribunal concluded the ballot-paper and ballot-box distribution to the 254 electoral colleges.

Correa spoke on Thursday and highlighted that this referendum is a demand by the citizenship, presented during the most recent electoral campaign.

The Constituent Assembly is the highest expression that sovereignty is in the people, the president highlighted, insisting on its validity, as a mechanism to reorganize the institutions and the State.

The head of State said that Constituent Assembly will elaborate a new constitution to depoliticize the tribunals and controlling authorities, reshape the Congress, and establish a people`s representative democracy.

He recalled that the Constituent has the objective to end the evil that affected the country in the last decade, in which there were eight presidents, millions of Ecuadorians abandoned their land, and there was bank embezzlement.

Ecuador is celebrating its sixth referendum in the last 27 years, and the second one to vote for establishing a National Constituent Assembly.

The first referendum was held on June 11, 1996 and the last one on November 26, 2006, during the presidential-election second round, won by economist and current President Rafael Correa.

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