Ecuador's new constitution - In Good Faith

Though not as radical as similar reforms in Venezuela and Bolivia, Ecuador’s newly approved charter could still spell trouble

From The Economist print edition, 2 Oct, 2008

APOh joy! Correa grabs more power

ON SEPTEMBER 28th Ecuadorians voted by an almost two-thirds majority (64%) to approve a new constitution—Ecuador’s 20th since independence—giving President Rafael Correa sweeping new powers and the possibility of remaining in office until 2017. This, he says, will consolidate his “citizens’ revolution” and bring stability to this chronically unstable Andean nation that has had eight presidents in the past 11 years. But many Ecuadorians worry that the left-wing populist president is creating a Venezuelan-style autocracy.

In championing the new constitution, Mr Correa has certainly followed the path of two fellow leftist presidents, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia. The three share an antipathy towards neoliberalism and central-bank autonomy, along with a belief in state-owned businesses, the welfare state and a redistribution of wealth—made easier in all three countries by the surge in energy prices.

Like Venezuela’s constitution, approved by a similarly big majority of voters in 1999, Ecuador’s seeks to create a new “people’s power”, giving an appointed citizens’ council oversight of the other branches of government. It also allows a president to hold office for two consecutive four-year terms, instead of just one. (After extending the time Venezuela’s president could remain in office to two consecutive six-year terms, Mr Chávez failed in his attempt to remove all limits.)

But Ecuador’s constitutional reforms are much less radical than those already introduced in Venezuela and now planned in Bolivia (where, after violent protests last month, the government and opposition have been locked in talks). Unlike Messrs Chávez and Morales, Mr Correa, an economist educated in the United States, has not moved to nationalise telecommunications and electrical utility companies, or vowed to establish closer relations with Russia. Nor, despite the fears of big landowners, has he threatened to seize their properties.

Mr Correa says that his charter needs to be interpreted “in good faith”, and might even require some correcting. The article calling for the redistribution of the means of production, for example, should be understood as seeking equal opportunities for all, he insists. One clause even calls for the state to maintain price stability. “We want a society of entrepreneurs,” says Gustavo Larrea, the security minister.

After the expulsion of America’s ambassadors to Venezuela and Bolivia, Mr Correa hastened to say that he would not be following suit. Indeed, only heavy campaigning had kept him from meeting the United States’ new ambassador to Ecuador, who arrived in August.

The referendum is Mr Correa’s fourth straight victory at the polls in the past two years. But the new constitution is already causing tensions. Hours after the vote, hundreds of would-be squatters tried to invade a nature reserve in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s biggest city—the 19th such attempt—claiming their action was now permitted under the new charter. They managed to clear two-thirds of the newly reforested site before being evicted.

Meanwhile, in Quito, the capital, Ecuador’s 31 Supreme Court judges are up in arms over plans to turn their court into a smaller 21-member National Court of Justice and subject its authority to a new Constitutional Court. Some have threatened to resign, with the possibility of leaving Ecuador with a big gap in its legal system for many months. And these are only the first of the obstacles likely to confront the “citizens’ revolution”.