Correa ponders reelection in 2017
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is reassessing his previous decision not to run for reelection in 2017.
“It is my duty to review my sincere decision not to seek reelection,” he said Saturday (March 1) during his weekly radio address. “We see dark clouds facing the Citizen Revolution and we all must be in our trenches to defend what we’ve achieved.”
“Citizen Revolution” is the name Correa has given to his government strategy.
“Comrades, we are in a revolution here. We’ll know how to defend it,” he said. “We’re going to leave the door open and see how things evolve, but we won’t let the international right appropriate things.”
“Yes, I believe we should think about it seriously and leave the door open in case those dark clouds grow,” he said, alluding to the results of the municipal elections of Feb. 23, when the opposition won in five of Ecuador’s most populated cities.
The right emerged from those elections “pumped up, strengthened,” he said. It is “an organized right, with foreign support, with a strategy of power against progressive governments in this country.”
Correa, 50, first came to power in 2007 and was ratified in 2009 for four more years, until 2013, when he was reelected. The nation’s Constitution establishes that elected officials may be reelected only once. A Constitutional amendment will be needed for Correa to seek the presidency again.
In his radio address, Correa said that his administration still has much to accomplish, “much to do so this process may be irreversible and we can leave to our children a country without so much manipulation and corruption, […] a country without the usual powers spying on us to dominate us once again.”
Leaders of Correa’s ruling party, Alianza PAIS (AP), said that they’ll start working immediately on a proposal for a Constitutional amendment.
The president of the National Assembly, Gabriela Rivadeneira, said that “we have repeatedly mentioned that the articles in the Constitution relative to the limitation of reelections should be reversed.”
Article 441 of the Ecuadorean Constitution outlines two procedures for an amendment bid. It can be accomplished through a referendum requested by the president or by the citizenry, with the support of at least 8 percent of the registered voters.
A second way is through the initiative of two-thirds of the members of the Assembly. Ribadeneira said that Alianza PAIS will consult with the Constitutional Court on which procedure to follow. At present, Alianza PAIS controls 100 of the 137 possible votes in the Assembly.
Musing about his stay in power, Correa said that “I shall never say it was a great sacrifice. They have been the happiest years of my life and my post is at the disposal of the Ecuadorean people.”
