IHT, Nov 19, 2007
QUITO, Ecuador: Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa will control more than 60 percent of an assembly writing a new constitution for the politically unstable nation, according to official election results Monday.
Correa's new political movement, Pais, won 80 of the assembly's 130 seats in the Sept. 30 vote, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal reported.
Correa has called on the assembly to dissolve Congress and says the new constitution will take power away from Ecuador's traditional political elite, which he blames for the country's problems.
Correa's strongest opposition is the Patriotic Society Party of former President Lucio Gutierrez, who was ousted in April 2005 amid massive street protests. It won just 18 seats.
The assembly could begin to meet as early as Nov. 29.
Correa, Ecuador's eighth president in the last decade, wants to increase the number of four-year consecutive terms allowed from one to two, but he denies that he seeks to stay in power indefinitely.
Correa is a close ally of Washington foe Hugo Chavez, who is seeking extensive changes to his own country's constitution in Venezuela.
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