Ecuador votes No to U.S. army bases, in blow to President Noboa : NPR

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — Ecuadorians voted on Sunday to reject a bundle of referendum measures that may have allowed international army bases within the nation. The result’s seen as a pointy political setback for President Daniel Noboa, the 37-year-old conservative chief and shut ally of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The proposal was closely backed by Noboa as an important step to confront drug traffickers and violent gangs. Murder charges in some Ecuadorian cities are amongst the world’s highest, as native gangs, backed by worldwide trafficking cartels battle for territory. The president says roughly 70% of world cocaine flows via the nation. Even so, voters decisively opposed the plan.

Voters additionally rejected measures to chop public funding for political events, create a constitutional meeting to rewrite the nation’s structure and scale back the dimensions of Congress.

For a lot of, the vote was a referendum on Noboa’s management. Rosita Guichimillo, a 48-year-old Quito homemaker, mentioned she feared the constitutional revisions would place an excessive amount of energy within the president’s palms.

“If he rewrites the structure, he’ll do it to serve himself … and spoil the nation much more,” Guichimillo mentioned as she voted within the Ecuadorian capital beneath mild showers.

Ecuador has been battered by a surge in gang violence as prison teams aligned with worldwide cartels battle for management of trafficking routes. Coastal communities have been hit significantly laborious, with struggling fishermen typically coerced or recruited with guarantees of fast money.

The nation’s place between Peru and Colombia — the world’s prime cocaine producers — has turned it into a serious transit hall for medicine heading to the USA and Europe. Cartels and their native companions now exert affect throughout key port cities and huge stretches of the Pacific coast.

Noboa spent weeks pushing for the poll measures, arguing that international army cooperation would bolster Ecuador’s overstretched safety forces. U.S. Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem has visited Ecuador twice this yr, providing intelligence-sharing assist. On her most up-to-date journey, she toured a former U.S. army base on the Pacific coast and rode horseback alongside President Noboa.

The president has declared an “inside armed battle,” imposed repeated states of emergency, and opened a maximum-security jail for gang leaders — strikes that originally lowered violence however didn’t maintain long-term enhancements, with homicides set to hit new information this yr.

Ecuadorian safety analyst Michele Maffei mentioned broader reforms are nonetheless wanted. “Co-operation is simply the cherry on prime,” she mentioned. “Ecuador has to strengthen its judicial system and sort out corruption.”

Sunday’s referendum consequence comes amid rising uncertainty within the area, as the most important U.S. army deployment within the Caribbean in a long time continues to increase. Formally, Washington frames the buildup as an “anti-narco terrorism” effort, however President Trump has additionally been contemplating army choices in opposition to Venezuela’s authoritarian authorities, which he accuses of involvement in drug trafficking — a declare Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro denies.