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Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, has won a referendum on a new constitution that will implement leftist reforms, including increased state control over monetary and oil policy.

Preliminary results showed 65% approval, with almost half of the votes counted. An opposition leader told Reuters that Correa had won.

Correa is an ally of the socialist regimes in Venezuela and Bolivia, although his reforms are less radical than those of Hugo Chávez or Evo Morales.

The new constitution contains a number of provisions aimed at the 38% of Ecuadorians who live below the poverty line. It guarantees free education up to and including university, increased spending on health, low-interest micro-loans, building materials for first-time homeowners and free seeds for growing crops.

Correa is also granted greater control over the central bank and army, and the right to stand for two more consecutive terms.

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The new constitution received 64.02 percent "yes" votes, with nearly 92 percent votes counted, Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) said in a communique Monday.

Only two of the country's 24 provinces had turned in "no" votes, the communique added.

During a meeting with foreign media at the government's headquarters in Carondelet Palace, Correa said the new constitution will give political stability to Ecuador, eradicate neo-liberalism and set the foundation for socialism in the country.

"There will be a change in the economical and political models in the country," he said.

The new constitution comes into force next February. - Xinhua

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As Ecuadorians prepare to vote on a proposed constitution this Sunday, President Rafael Correa is coming into conflict not only with the conservative elite but also with the Left, including rebellious members of his own party. While social movements are by and large hailing the constitution as progressive, indigenous and other activists are concerned about what they see as Correa's increasing moves to the Right.

But coverage of Ecuador's president in the U.S. corporate media has primarily relied on caricature and political simplification, leaving most US readers the assumption that Correa is a "Leftist." He is thus usually vilified by U.S. conservatives and deified by progressives. This is true whether you're reading The Associated Press referring to Correa as a "socialist" or The New York Times facilely miming Colombian charges of FARC ties. The situation in Ecuador is far more complicated.

Monica Chuji, a former Assembly Member from Correa's Alianza País party, recently disaffiliated from the party, angry over Correa's support for large scale mining and attacks on the indigenous movement. Correa recently said that "infantile leftism, environmentalism and indigenism" pose the "greatest threat" to Ecuador's progress.

Correa and supporters of the proposed constitution are framing the vote as a stark choice between change towards a brighter future and a return to a past governed by a corrupt oligarchy. Concretely, backers point to the proposed magna carta's establishment of free access to education and healthcare, universal social security, and support for public and community media.

Ecuadorians (like Americans) want to believe that change is coming. Over the past 10 years, three presidents have been ousted by popular and overwhelmingly peaceful mobilizations against corruption and neoliberal economic reforms. People are overwhelmingly sick of the old guard elite (generally referred to as the oligarchy). Correa promises to end to the "long night of neoliberalism," an era of deregulation and privatization that culminated in the 1998 banking crisis when Ecuadorian deposit holders lost $8 billion.

A number of moves have contributed to Correa's sky-high approval ratings. He recently seized the property of the Grupo Isaías, whose owners ran one of the banks responsible for the 1999-2000 crisis. He has also acceded to popular demands and is closing the US military base in the coastal city of Manta when the contract expires in November 2009. And perhaps most importantly, he has increased "solidarity bonuses" for the poor urban and farmers.

The Right, on the other hand, has been trying to frame the debate around the issues of abortion and gay rights—sound familiar? While the abortion issue is a red herring—the new constitution retains the not too progressive status quo, allowing for "therapeutic" abortion to save the mother's life—there are significant advances for GLBT rights, namely the historic legalization of safe sex civil unions. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity would also be prohibited….

Environmentalists and the CONAIE are also pleased that the proposed constitution would recognize nature as a legal subject of rights and guarantees the right to water as a fundamental human right. But they worry that Correa, who successfully blocked a provision that would have given local communities veto power over mining and oil projects, is planning to pay the "social debt" through ecologically destructive mining and oil policies. This would pit the beneficiaries of social services against rural community members resisting resource-extraction projects….

The Left and social movements are in an awkward situation, defending the Constitution against the Right while opposing many of Correa's policies. A Leftist academic who publicly supports the government surprised me last week when he said that he hopes the constitution doesn't win "by too much." The Left is unsure whether Correa will credit social movements for a referendum victory or whether it will reinforce his attitude that he is the leader of a one man movement.

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