[progchat_action] Ecuador's Correa wins decisive electoral victory
 
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:11:04 -0600 (CST)

Ecuador's Correa wins control of constituent assembly, official results show

The Associated Press
 November 19, 2007

Quito, Ecuador: Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa will control more
than 60 percent of an assembly writing a new constitution for the
politically unstable nation, according to official election results Monday.

Correa's new political movement, Pais, won 80 of the assembly's 130 seats in
the Sept. 30 vote, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal reported.

Correa has called on the assembly to dissolve Congress and says the new
constitution will take power away from Ecuador's traditional political
elite, which he blames for the country's problems.

Correa's strongest opposition is the Patriotic Society Party of former
President Lucio Gutierrez, who was ousted in April 2005 amid massive street
protests. It won just 18 seats.

Correa, Ecuador's eighth president in the last decade, wants to increase the
number of four-year consecutive terms allowed from one to two, but he denies
that he seeks to stay in power indefinitely.

Correa is a close ally of Washington foe Hugo Chavez, who is seeking
extensive changes to his own country's constitution in Venezuela.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/19/america/LA-GEN-Ecuador-Constitutio
n.php

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