QUITO, Ecuador – Ecuador's evilness chair proclaimed victory after an opening enquiry Sat indicated voters roundly authorised 10 balloting questions proposed by left President Rafael Correa that critics feature module alter his grip on power, inhibit press immunity and alter the judiciary's independence.
The opening enquiry by SP Investigacion y Estudios, which regularly does impact for the government, said voters authorised all the questions by greater than 60 percent. First official results were due later Saturday.
The plebiscite was an important judge of popularity for Correa, who was first elected in 2006 and easily re-elected in 2009 after a writing of the constitution. He is suitable for re-election in digit years.
Some of the questions were straightforward, much as whether to forbiddance bullfighting and gambling. Others were quite complex. Each required a removed vote.
Two of the most controversial measures would forbid owners of programme media from having another advertizement interests and create a polity media fault panel.
Critics feature both would make it easier for Correa, who is ofttimes at loggerheads with the largely opposition programme media and playing community, to subtly bill censorship.
Another important balloting discourse titled for dissolving Ecuador's judicial fault council and exchange it with a temporary body given the task of reworking the system. Another would allow polity to retard people for longer without filing charges.
Results of the opening enquiry were programme directly after polls closed, and Vice President Lenin Moreno told reporters that the polity took the victory with "humility" but added that lawmakers now hit a mandate from the public to modify the vote's results into law.
Five of the questions mandate constitutional changes. The another five order congressional action.
Former President Lucio Gutierrez, a unmerciful Correa opponent, told The Associated Press that with the referendum Correa "seeks to verify by force justice and dominate the programme media."
Correa, who did not directly speak, is a near associate of President novelist Chavez of Venezuela and is unwaveringly in South America's left bloc.
He enjoys a 65 proportionality approval judgement in a corruption-bedeviled land that in the decennium preceding to his election saw threesome presidents, most fresh Gutierrez, ousted in favourite revolts.
With a forceful, uncompromising style, Correa has alienated some former allies, including leaders of Ecuador's indigenous movement. They are angry with his instancy that the state hit the terminal articulate on dirt and water rights.
But Correa's populist programs, much as $35 monthly payments to nearly 2 meg poor families, cerebration of low-income housing and a commitment to universal liberated education, hit boosted his popularity in this diminutive chain nation of 14.3 meg people.
Political shrink Adrian Bonilla of the FLACSO conceive tank says that with strong leadership, Correa has ably leveraged Ecuador's lubricator wealth and an trenchant tax system into favourite programs.
He has worn criticism for alleged autocratic tendencies, however. Former President Osvaldo Hurtado, a standpat in the faith Democratic party, said before Saturday's balloting that Correa has conjured "a perfect dictatorship" by manipulating egalitarian institutions much as some feature Chavez has in Venezuela.
Correa has alienated some external investors by renegotiating lubricator contracts to give Ecuador a higher cut of profits and has forged newborn playing ties with China and Iran.
Last month, he expelled U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges after the WikiLeaks website unconcealed a diplomatic telegram from her suggesting Correa was substantially alive but unbigoted of high-level corruption in Ecuador's national police. Correa denied the allegation.
Polls indicated before Saturday's balloting that most half of Ecuadoreans were having pain discernment the balloting questions.
Many voted "no" as a result.
"The actuality is I don't see a aggregation of the questions," said Nataly Mendez, a 24-year-old caregiver allegoric voting in Quito's lower-middle-class Don Bosco neighborhood. "That's why I voted no."
Many who voted "yes" said it was discover of honour for the government.
"We Ecuadoreans should be sworn and support discover if we poverty things to change," said Maria Lourdes Silva, a 43-year-old cosmetics saleswoman.
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Associated Press writers Gabriela Molina in Quito and Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.
(This edition CORRECTS name of polling concern to SP Investigacion y Estudios.)
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