Ecuadorian president wants referendum to reduce foreign bases.

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Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has said he wants a constitutional amendment to allow foreign military bases in Ecuador, presumably referring to US bases.

Noboa came up with the idea 13 years after the last American soldiers established a base in the fishing port of Manta, on Ecuador’s Pacific coast, and returned it to the Ecuadorian army.

President Noboa argues that a foreign military presence would help Ecuador combat transnational criminal gangs that use the country as a major transit route for drugs smuggled from cocaine-producing countries like Peru and Colombia, to the U.S. and Europe, where resale prices are high and profitable for traffickers.

The US base in Manta, considered strategic because it is located in the middle of Ecuador’s Pacific coastline, was in operation until 2009, when an agreement on the fight against drugs between Washington and Quito was terminated.

A year earlier, Ecuadorians gave the green light to a new constitution promoted by the former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), which banned the installation of foreign military bases in the country.

Correa’s critics claim that drug trafficking in Ecuador has increased since the withdrawal of the Manta base. In 2010, a year after the military installation was withdrawn, 18.2 tons of drugs were seized, while in 2023 a record 219 tons were recorded, according to official figures.

Noboa declared war on the gangs in January in an effort to eliminate about two dozen criminal organizations linked to cartels in Mexico and Colombia, as well as the Albanian mafia, authorities said. Still, gang violence persists in cities including Manta, Durán and Guayaquil.

Noboa made his announcement in a video recorded at the Manta base and uploaded to X, formerly known as Twitter.

In it, he criticizes then-President Rafael Correa’s 2008 decision not only not to renew the agreement under which the US had leased the base in Manta, but also to include in the constitution a ban on any foreign military presence.

“They claimed that Ecuador would regain its sovereignty, but what they did was hand it over to the drug traffickers,” Noboa says in the video, without explicitly naming Correa.

“In a transnational conflict, we need a response at national and international levels,” he adds.

He said he would send the partial constitutional reform to Ecuador’s National Assembly, which will have to vote on it before the proposal is adopted.

But before lawmakers can vote on it, the constitutional amendment must be approved by the Constitutional Court.

Furthermore, any amendment to the Constitution must be submitted to the Ecuadorian people through a referendum in order to take effect.

Meanwhile, major newspapers in Ecuador are paying more attention to the upcoming nationwide power outage from 8pm to 6pm starting on September 23.

This is not the first constitutional amendment proposed by President Noboa.

In April, his government put 11 measures to the vote, nine of which were approved.

Many of these measures also concerned security, for example, allowing soldiers to patrol the streets and allowing criminals to be extradited to face trial in the US.

President Noboa came to power less than a year ago, following early elections after the resignation of President Guillermo Lasso.

Noboa has already said he will run for re-election in February 2025. Monday’s announcement is seen as an attempt to portray himself as a forceful and active leader, despite the gang violence that continues to plague Ecuador.

Polls show the president’s popularity has declined in recent months.

Analysts say this is mainly due to the lack of results in the “war” he has declared against criminal groups operating in Ecuador.

Port cities, particularly Guayaquil and Durán, the conurbation across the Guayas River, are experiencing an explosion in gang-related murders and kidnappings.

Sources: BBC, El Commercio, El Universo, DW.

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