JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Voters in Ecuador delivered a decisive rebuke to their young president over the weekend, voting no in a referendum that, among other measures, would have allowed the return of foreign military bases to the country. President Daniel Noboa had campaigned hard for the measure, backed by strong support from the Trump administration, which had hoped to expand its military presence along Ecuador's Pacific coast. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in Spanish).
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CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Supporters of the No campaign celebrated in the capital, Quito. With 100% of the votes counted, the measure to bring back bases - in particular, U.S. military bases - lost by a wide margin. Voters also rejected measures to cut public funding for political parties, rewrite the constitution and reduce the size of Congress. But for many, the vote was a referendum on President Daniel Noboa.
CARLOS: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "He's a president without any credibility or professionalism, and the country is worse off than ever," said this voter in Quito, Carlos. He asked we only use his first name because he was fearful of repercussions at his workplace for talking about politics.
Last night, Noboa did not address supporters. He posted on social media that he respects the will of the people and will, quote, "continue fighting tirelessly for the country." Noboa says he needs the U.S. military bases and international cooperation to fight the transnational drug gangs that have taken over large swaths of Ecuador. The country has been enveloped in a violent crime wave, with homicides, kidnappings and extortion surging. But Ecuadorian security analyst Michele Maffei says Noboa was stubbornly focused on military methods to fight the gangs. She says he needs a more holistic and robust security strategy.
MICHELE MAFFEI: He lacked on that. Even though every single specialist in Ecuador warned Noboa that going towards only a militaristic approach was going to have a counterintuitive result, he didn't listen.
KAHN: And homicides have surged. On average, 25 people are being killed in the country every day, according to government figures. Noboa has deployed the military to fight traffickers, imposed repeated states of emergency and just recently opened a maximum-security prison for gang leaders. Maffei says while the U.S. may not be putting military bases along Ecuador's coastline, cooperation between the two countries continues. What Noboa has to do now is work harder on rooting out corruption and going after the drug traffickers' assets and money laundering capabilities - something, she says, Ecuador has not done.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Bogota, Colombia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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