In a country awash in violence, a vote will test its leader's stance
Ecuadorians will vote Sunday in a referendum that could give their center-right president greater powers to combat drugrelated gang violence and also gauge how he would fare in his bid for reelection next year. President Daniel Noboa, the 36-yearold heir to a banana empire, took office in November after an election season focused on drugrelated gang violence, which has surged over the past five years to levels not seen in decades.
In January, he declared an “internal armed conflict” and directed the military to “neutralize” the country's roughly two dozen gangs, which the government labeled “terrorist organizations.” The move allowed soldiers to patrol streets and prisons.
Two weeks ago, Noboa took the extraordinary step of arresting an Ecuadorian politician facing a prison sentence who had taken refuge at the Mexican Embassy in Quito, in what experts called a violation of an international treaty on the sanctity of diplomatic posts. The move drew widespread condemnation across the region. Noboa defended the embassy raid, saying the politician, a former vice president, was not entitled to protection because he was a convicted criminal.
The deployment of the military and the forceful arrest of the former vice president were meant to show that Noboa is tough on crime and impunity, political analysts say. The vote Sunday will gauge how strongly voters support his aggressive stance.
While Noboa has high approval ratings, some human rights groups have criticized his government's harsh response as going too far and leading to abuses of people in prison and civilians in the streets.
Still, most Ecuadorians are willing to trade off Noboa's stringent tactics if it makes them less likely to become victims of crime, experts said.
The security measures would enshrine the increased military presence into law, lengthen prison sentences for certain offenses linked to organized crime and allow the extradition of criminals convicted in Ecuador, among other changes.