Ecuadoreans approve tough security measures in referendum

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Ecuadoreans have approved a series of hardline security polices in a referendum designed to strengthen President Daniel Noboa’s hand in the war on drug gangs.

With 63 per cent of the vote counted on Monday, voters approved all nine questions relating to security, including proposals that allow the military to support the police in tackling organised crime, the extradition of Ecuadorean criminals and extended sentences for certain crimes.

“We have defended the country, now we have more tools to fight against crime and return peace to Ecuadorean families,” Noboa, the 36-year-old son of a billionaire banana magnate, posted on his Instagram account as votes were tallied after the poll on Sunday.

While voters delivered the business-friendly Noboa a mandate to continue with his hardline security policies, the rejection of two economic reforms could worry investors.

One would have allowed for the recognition of international arbitration of investment disputes, while another would have permitted fixed-term and hourly employment contracts. Both proposals were opposed by Conaie, the country’s powerful Indigenous federation, and leftwing political parties. Ecuador is also working on a deal with the IMF, which officials have said could be finalised this week.

Sunday’s results are likely to help Noboa’s electoral prospects in next year’s presidential election, analysts said. After taking office last November after a snap poll, he is seeing out the term of Guillermo Lasso, his conservative predecessor. Lasso stepped down while facing impeachment proceedings in the country’s opposition-led congress.

“Noboa is going to present the result as a triumph, but it is definitely not the result he expected,” said Sebastián Hurtado, who runs Prófitas, a Quito-based political risk consultancy. “The rejection of economic questions is particularly frustrating for the private sector and investors in the context of a ‘pro-business’ government.”

The South American oil and shrimp exporter, once a relatively peaceful country bordered by more violent neighbours, has been rattled by an unprecedented crime wave that has seen the murder rate soar in recent years.

A series of jailbreaks and attacks in January, including the takeover of a television station live on air, led Noboa to declare that Ecuador was living through an “internal armed conflict”, designating 22 drug trafficking gangs as terrorist organisations. He decreed a state of emergency, temporarily empowering the military to intervene in the country’s prisons that have become bases for drug traffickers.

The murder rate has fallen following Noboa’s January crackdown, but political violence continues to rile the country of 18mn people. Two mayors were killed ahead of the vote, while on Sunday a prison director in the western province of Manabí was murdered. About 40,000 soldiers were deployed to the streets as voters went to the polls.

As the referendum results were still being counted on Monday, authorities announced the capture of Fabricio Colón Pico, a powerful gang leader who escaped from jail during the attacks in January.

Noboa has sought to replicate some of the tactics of El Salvador’s strongman President Nayib Bukele, who has received widespread domestic support for his own crackdown on criminal gangs despite concerns from rights groups about authoritarianism and a lack of due process for those who face jail terms.

However, analysts argue that Bukele’s tactics — in which 76,000 suspected gang members have been locked up since March 2022 — would fail in Ecuador, where criminal groups are better funded and have co-opted political and judicial institutions.

“Noboa cannot be a Bukele because he cannot win like Bukele has,” said Sofía Cordero, a Quito-based political scientist at the Observatory for Political Reforms in Latin America. “Those that want a Bukele figure in Ecuador should give up on that dream because things are much more difficult here than in El Salvador.”