Ecuador's New President

Ecuador’s new president Rafael Correa has been taking a lot of heat in the media, both in Latin and North America, for his supposedly authoritarian tendencies. Let’s all take a deep breath and a step back from this one so we can look at it with a somewhat clear head. The main charge against Correa is that he is showing similar tendencies to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia. This is based on the fact that Correa has plans to, as he promised in his election campaign, to set up a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Left at that I would have to agree that it seems a bit shady. Unfortunately for his critics all one has to do is take a closer look to see the reality of the situation.
First of all I would like to note that Correa has only been in office for a few months, so any charges of authoritarianism leveled against seems a bit premature to me. Secondly he is following in the footsteps of Chavez and Morales. Here’s the thing though, those footsteps have a distinctly democratic pattern to them. I will explain. Ecuador just held a nation wide referendum on whether or not to call a constituent assembly to rewrite the existing constitution. It passed with about and 80% yes vote, while only 12% voted against. The next step will be for the Ecuadorian people to vote locally for representatives to be seated in the assembly. The assembly will then have a set period of time to draft a constitution, which will have to again be approved by a majority of the Ecuadorian people before it is ratified. This is the same exact process that was followed in Venezuela and Bolivia.
Hum, that doesn’t seem very authoritarian to me. In fact it actually seems like the people are having a say (and with an 80% vote more like a demand) in their own governing. Far from the power grab it is being presented as in a lot of the media, just as the popular reforms in Venezuela and Bolivia were/are, this is clearly a case of a leader letting the people of his nation have the loudest voice as to which direction the country should take. Let us not forget that Ecuador has had 8 presidents in the last 10 years, a country where corruption at governmental levels is an expected reality. The fact that a president is trying to make a radical change from his countries checkered past with the massive support of the people should be taken as a sign of democratic and social progress, not an ‘authoritarian power grab.”
Time will certainly tell which direction Correa’s presidency will take. At least in my opinion it seems to be starting out on the right foot.