Ecuador’s Correa Takes Oath for 2nd Term

QUITO – Rafael Correa, first elected in 2007, was sworn-in on Monday for a second term as Ecuador’s president after winning the fresh election mandated by the new constitution he convinced his compatriots to approve last year in a referendum.

Correa was sworn-in for the period from August 2009 to May 2013 at an official ceremony attended by a dozen heads of state among other international representatives.

Also present at the ceremony was the deposed president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, who received the applause of those present when Ecuadorian congressional speaker Fernando Cordero again condemned the June 28 coup in Tegucigalpa in his speech before Correa took his oath of office.

Cordero said that in the “citizens’ revolution” that Correa is promoting, “loyalty goes to ideas and principles” and added that the people in whose name all the ruling party’s activities are carried out will not be betrayed.

After administering the oath of office and placing the presidential sash, he signed the decree by which Correa, a left-leaning, U.S.-educated economist, assumed the presidency of Ecuador for the second time.