Implications of the Referendum

Ecuador held a historic referendum which denied former President Correa a chance to run for the presidency again. The Washington Post argues that Ecuador is bucking an authoritarian trend in the region and around the world:

RAFAEL CORREA, like Vladi­mir Putin, Hugo Chávez and other authoritarian rulers, found himself stymied by term limits. So in 2015, the Ecuadoran president persuaded his legislature to lift a ceiling of two presidential terms by promising not to run in 2017. His idea was to install a follower for four years and then return to power, as Mr. Putin once did. Then, on Sunday, came a much-deserved comeuppance: Ecuadoran voters, prompted by Mr. Correa’s own successor, voted overwhelmingly to restore a two-term presidential limit, thus blocking the planned second act. It was a victory for democracy not just in Ecuador but also in a region where numerous rulers have sought to entrench themselves in power.

In other parts of the continent, leaders aren’t standing aside:

Voters elsewhere in Latin America appear eager to push long-serving leaders out of power; the problem is that the caudillos aren’t listening. Bolivian President Evo Morales lost a referendum to remove his term limit, but then induced the supreme court he appointed to void it. Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Honduras’s Juan Orlando Hernández similarly manipulated their courts. After extracting permission to run for reelection, Mr. Hernández most likely stole Honduras’s election last November.

Observers generally are pleased with the new president Ecuador and think the referendum was a positive break between the new president Lenin Morena and his predecessor Correa, who came from the same political party.

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