The vote on the referendum called in Ecuador by the president Daniel Noboa For this Sunday it started with eleven questions to be answered by citizens to strengthen the fight against organized crime, attract investments through the recognition of international arbitrations and encourage the creation of employment with temporary and hourly contracts.
From 7:00 a.m. local time (12:00 GMT) to 5:00 p.m. local time (22:00 GMT), the 4,322 voting centers established for this appointment with the polls will be open, to which more than 13 are invited, 6 million Ecuadorians, of which more than 400,000 vote abroad.
This vote will be a turning point for Noboa, who relies on the high popularity achieved in the first months of his mandate by having elevated the fight against criminal gangs to the category of “internal armed conflict.”
During the opening ceremony of the day, Noboa stressed that this referendum “will set the course of the challenge to confront organized crime, the fight against corruption and job creation.”.
«Today is our time to make history, to mark a before and after»said Noboa, for whom “This consultation raises several political flags”.
External and internal crisis
The referendum is being held at one of the most delicate moments for Noboa in the nearly five months he has been in power, with an international diplomatic crisis due to the assault on the Mexican Embassy to arrest former vice president Jorge Glas and with an internal energy crisis with blackouts of up to eight hours a day this week.
If he wins the plebiscite, Noboa will be reinforced with a view to the new general elections that will take place in less than ten months and where the president evaluates running for re-electionbut if he loses he may be weakened for the remainder of his term, until May 2025.
Criminal violence has also increased in the week of the referendum with the murder of two mayors in rural towns in whose territories there is presence of illegal miningan activity in which organized crime has also ventured, which has drug trafficking as its main business.
Reforms in Constitution
Among the eleven questions there are five that involve changes to the 2008 Constitution approved during the presidential term of Rafael Correa (2007-2017), while the remaining six must be processed through the National Assembly (Parliament), if they receive the support of the population.
Most of them propose legal tools to reinforce the fight against organized crime, which is attributed to the wave of violence that has led the country to be among the first in Latin America in homicides, with about 45 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023.
For this reason, it proposes that the Armed Forces support the Police in operations against organized crime on a permanent basis, and that the military be in charge of controlling access to prisons, the epicenter of this crisis as they have been dominated until recently. by criminal gangs, with large arsenals of weapons in their possession.
Extraditions and harsher penalties
Also search allow the extraditions of Ecuadorians required by the Justice of other countries and increase the penalties for crimes related to organized crime, as well as eliminate prison benefits for several of these criminal offenses.
Added to this are the proposals to create a crime of possession and carrying of weapons for the exclusive use of the Police and the Armed Forces and that weapons seized from crime immediately go to equip police and militaryin addition to expediting the process of expropriation of assets of illicit origin.
Other issues center on establishing a constitutional court system, accepting international arbitration in any jurisdiction, and allowing hourly employment contracts.
In Ecuador, voting is mandatory for people between 18 and 65 years old, while it is optional for adolescents between 16 and 18 years old and also for those over 65 years old, as well as for police officers, soldiers and prisoners without a final sentence. . EFE
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