QUITO— The progress of the scrutiny of the popular consultation in Ecuador reached close to 70% on Monday and ratified the results of a quick count by the Electoral Council that anticipated the victory of nine of the 11 questions on the modification of norms to toughen the fight against organized crime.
Ecuadorians maintained an approval of more than 60% for the questions about increasing penalties for crimes such as terrorism and drug trafficking, extraditing Ecuadorians – now prohibited by law – and keeping the military in the streets to control insecurity and violence, among others.
The two questions in which citizens rejected the Executive’s proposal are the one that sought to modify the law to allow contracts and hourly work and to submit differences with transnational companies to international arbitration.
“Thank you Ecuador for your broad support for a security policy and fight against corruption… We are experiencing difficult situations, but I am certain that we are going in the right direction,” President Daniel Noboa wrote on his X account.
The consultation emerged as an alternative for the government to modify the Constitution and laws in its desire to confront the excessive violence, prevailing since the beginning of 2021 and generated by criminal groups that, according to the authorities, dispute export routes and narcotics distribution territories. in this country in alliance with cartels from Mexico and Colombia.
The violence of organized crime has caused a record increase in murders that placed the rate of violent deaths at the end of 2023 at 40 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest on the continent.
According to analysts, the results of the popular consultation show tacit support for Noboa and his management.
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“People have given the government political support in everything related to the security axis and its narrative,” said analyst and professor at the University of the Hemisferios, Daniel Crespo, who warned that “now a race against time… and it is up to the president to articulate a strategy that makes the citizens’ expectations come true.”
The analyst also warned that it is evident that this consultation also became a platform “in view of next year’s presidential elections” in which Noboa has announced his decision to run for re-election.
He added that the majority support at the polls occurred “despite the fact that the security figures are not so positive” due to the increase in crimes such as kidnapping, extortion and murders and for citizens it was rather a way of expressing their hope for security by trusting in a government that “says it has a tough hand against crime.”
As part of his strategy to combat violence, Noboa declared Ecuador in internal armed conflict, which allowed the Armed Forces to carry out joint patrols with the police in the streets and in the country’s prisons, and identified some 20 criminal gangs as “ terrorists.”
When the results are confirmed and for the changes made in the consultation questions to take effect, the Executive must publish the adjustments to the Magna Carta in the official gazette.
For the approved popular consultation questions, the government must send reform projects to the Assembly, which must process them in no more than 60 days, although it may make modifications. In the Legislature the government does not have a majority.
Source: AP
