Ecuador's electoral council approves referendum on foreign military bases

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QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador’s electoral council approved Saturday a request by President Daniel Noboa to organize a referendum asking voters to approve key changes to the nation’s constitution, as its conservative government seeks more tools to fight drug-related violence.

Voters will be asked whether a prohibition against foreign military bases in Ecuador should be eliminated. And whether the state should no longer have an obligation to fund political parties.

Noboa called for the referendum through a decree issued earlier this week, which also said that voters should be asked if the nation should rewrite its constitution by organizing a constituent assembly.

On Friday, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court suspended the request for voters to decide on a constituent assembly as it reviews several lawsuits against the move.

But Noboa issued a second decree on Saturday calling once again for a referendum on a constituent assembly. Salim Zaidan, an Ecuadorean constitutional lawyer, says the move could give the electoral council, which has declared that Ecuador is now preparing for an election, the ability to block any efforts by the constitutional court to stop the referendum.

“(Noboa) is trying to elude the court's efforts to control” the referendum, Zaidan said.

Noboa, 37, was elected earlier this year to a second term.

The conservative politician, heir to one of the nation's largest fortunes, has implemented iron-fisted policies against drug cartels that include militarizing some of the nation’s most violent cities, suspending some civil liberties and declaring drug gangs enemy combatants.

Located between Colombia and Peru, Ecuador was once one of the safest countries in South America.

But homicides rates in the nation of 18 million people have tripled since 2020, as drug gangs fight for control over smuggling routes along the Pacific coast, and use Ecuadorian ports to ship Colombian cocaine to Mexico.

The gangs have also tried to wield their influence in local politics by assassinating city council members and a presidential candidate who ran against Noboa in a special election two years ago.

Noboa, an ally of the Trump administration, has said he would like to increase military cooperation with the United States, which ran a base near the city of Manta until its lease expired in 2009. A constitution drafted in 2008 under leftist leader Rafael Correa, made it illegal for foreign militaries to run bases in Ecuador.