Correa's party wins 60% of seats in Constituient Assembly voting
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - November 20
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 September 30 vote, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal reported. Correa, an ally of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez's, has called on the assembly to dissolve Congress. Correa has said 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. The assembly could begin to meet as early as November 29. 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.