The voting day concluded today, Sunday, with a participation rate of 72 percent, and the first results showed no victory in two questions, which rules out hourly work and international arbitration.
While “Yes” will emerge victorious in the remaining 11 questions, most of which relate to security issues.
The questions that were topping the popular polls were questions related to hourly work and international arbitration. Faced with the reality we live in, people voted out of fear, not out of support for Daniel Noboa's administration, Leonidas Iza, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONA), told Pichincha radio station.
The consultation was political oxygen. The indigenous leader stressed that the president no longer has any pretext to ensure insecurity and fight corruption.
For his part, political analyst Mauro Andino agreed that President Noboa “is the biggest loser today.” The crown jewels were the hourly contracts and international arbitration courts. He reiterated that other security-related issues were issues that would mostly be addressed through the National Assembly.
Andino pointed out that the president will now be a hostage of his demagoguery by generating excessive expectations to reduce crime, while he knows very well that such a complex phenomenon cannot be solved through regulatory rules.
Representatives of political organizations also described the defeat of the referendum on questions related to hourly work and international arbitration as a victory for the people, according to the preliminary results.
The president of the Citizens' Revolution (RC) movement, Luisa González, stated that preventing this type of action and external arbitration stops the executive in its intentions.
The former presidential candidate said that the people put an end to Noboa and the government, which had become totalitarian and did not make coherent decisions.
Economist Alberto Acosta believes that the defense of national sovereignty and workers' rights prevailed, as well as the fear resulting from increasing insecurity, which will not find a way out through more repression and penal populism.
Legal experts believe that from that moment on, Noboa will have no excuses to put an end to insecurity, although they warn that the implementation of the consultation proposals will be of little benefit if social measures to reduce inequality are not adopted.
m/nta