Ecuador's Constitution likely to pass

Among the new provisions is one that gives the president -- who had been restricted to a single term -- the option of running for reelection. As far as Correa is concerned, he would be starting fresh with the new constitution, free to pursue the presidency in elections planned for next year, and again in 2013 if victorious. So he could be in office until 2017.

The new laws also ascribe rights to nature, including a ban on transgenic crops, and permit civil unions of homosexual couples. They would also grant a right to seek family planning advice, a provision the Roman Catholic Church opposed. Abortion is illegal.

Provisions that require farmland to be "socially useful" appear to give the state the power to confiscate unutilized properties and redistribute them to the poor. The nation's central bank will lose its autonomy and be subject to presidential policy.

"It's a mandate for profound national transformation," said Correa supporter and Assemblyman Norman Wray.

But some legal analysts expressed alarm at the powers the constitution gives Correa to control the branches of government. It would enable him to appoint a special Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control whose powers could supersede those of elected governors and Congress.

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'Hyper-presidentialism'

The council may appoint officials such as bank regulators and prosecutors to the electoral panel as well as judges.

"Ecuador has long seen its governability blockaded by its politicians, but I'm afraid this constitution is not going to help. It's only going to heighten the problems," said Simon Pachano, a political scientist at a Quito graduate school known as FLACSO.

Felipe Mantilla, a former interior minister and now dean of the law school at Guayaquil's Espiritu Santo University, said the new constitution would create an ominous "hyper-presidentialism."

"This will guarantee the president's future interference in the judiciary, giving him the power potentially to review Supreme Court decisions, which will only create more legal insecurity," Mantilla said.

But Correa supporters in government dismissed the notion that Correa or any president can gain excessive power. Lawmaker and Correa ally Paco Velasco referred to the three presidents who had been thrown out of office since 1997.

"Ecuador has a long history of rejecting presidents who try to avoid giving accounts, so I don't think that's going to be an issue," Velasco said. "This will open the gates of democracy, not close them."

The opposition's lightning rod was Jaime Nebot, a presidential aspirant who is mayor of Guayaquil, the booming coastal city where the nation's economic power is concentrated.

"The vote legitimizes Correa's proposal to have the state intervene more in the economy, assigning resources and establishing priorities," said Maria de la Paz Vela of Gestion magazine. "I think that's best left up to the market."

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chris.kraul@latimes.com

Special correspondent Paul Rosero contributed to this report.