ECUADOR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY FINISHING IN OVERDRIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L QUITO 000682

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/24/2018
TAGS: PGOV ECON PHUM EC
SUBJECT: ECUADOR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY FINISHING IN OVERDRIVE

REF: A. QUITO 582

B. QUITO 489

C. QUITO 402

Classified By: Charge Doug Griffiths for reason 1.4 (D)


1. (C) Summary: In a marathon session ending in the early
hours today (July 24),the Constituent Assembly put the final
touches on the new draft constitution that we expect will be
approved this evening. Eighty percent of the constitutional
articles were rushed through in the month of July. The draft
text is a sprawling document of more than 400 articles that
include a utopian expansion of rights and a tilt toward more
state-centered development. Advocates contend the new
constitution would guarantee citizens' rights and establish a
more functional government, taking control away from
self-interested elites. Critics argue that the constitution
would confer excessive power on the Executive and question
the presence of presidential delegates in the final sessions.
Divisions within President Correa,s Proud and Sovereign
Fatherland (PAIS) movement emerged in the final weeks of
deliberations, greatly angering the President, who called
dissenting members "infiltrators." (End summary)


2. (C) The Constituent Assembly, now under Fernando
Cordero's leadership (Ref A),is determined to meet the July
26 eight-month statutory deadline for drafting a new
constitution, which will allow the referendum to be held
September 28 as the GOE wants. During July, the Assembly
gave final approval to 400 articles (compared to 94 that
received final approval in previous months),plus last-minute
changes to previously-approved text, four laws, more than ten
mandates (temporary laws),and other resolutions. Assembly
President Cordero appointed constitutional and linguistic
experts to review the draft constitution and remove
duplication and grammatical or other errors. The Assembly
members received the draft with the experts' changes on July
19 (minus the preamble and transitory provisions). After
consolidating language from different committees on related
subjects, the final text contains 444 articles, almost
two-thirds more than the 1998 constitution.

HIGHLIGHTS OF NEW CONSITUTION


3. (C) The new constitution, like its predecessor, contains
a mix of the idealist (even utopian) and the pragmatic. On
the idealistic side, it makes a raft of promises intended to
improve people's lives individually or collectively, with
specific guarantees in areas like housing, education,
employment and health that governments will likely in large
part be unable to meet. For example, the disabled would be
granted more rights, such as the right to specialized
attention in public and private institutions, adequate
housing, specialized education, and free psychological
services. Social security benefits will be extended for
citizens who perform unremunerated domestic work in their own
homes. Most of these provisions were not controversial.


4. (C) Not surprisingly, much of the constitution is written
in such general or ambiguous terms that its impact will
depend on how it is implemented. A number of articles in the
new constitution bear a surprising resemblance to its 1998
predecessor.


5. (C) Under the constitution, Ecuador would have five
branches of government, adding the social
control/transparency function to the executive, legislative,
judicial, and electoral functions in the 1998 constitution.
Consistent with the rhetoric of Correa's "citizen
revolution," the new function expands provisions for citizen
input into government decision-making and citizen initiatives
for popular consultation. Other key provisions include the
requirement that property serve environmental as well as
social functions, government control over strategic sectors
of the economy, prohibitions on labor outsourcing and
trafficking of persons in all of its forms, and a commitment
to Latin American integration (Reftels).


6. (C) The Assembly fulfilled its promise to reorganize the
administrative structure of the state. The leading cities of
Quito and Guayaquil will be metropolitan districts.
Provinces are given the option of uniting to form autonomous
regions that meet specified criteria aimed at balance between
the regions. The third largest province of Manabi sought
vigorously to become a region on its own, but the minimum
population required was set slightly too high to allow this,
triggering the resignation of a PAIS committee president.

BALANCE OF POWERS


7. (C) Compared to the 1998 constitution, the new one would
shift the balance of power somewhat toward the President.
Leon Roldos (Ethics and Democracy Network, or RED),a former
PAIS ally, reportedly dubbed the new system a "Correista
monarchy." In a dramatic development, Roldos resigned from
the Assembly on July 23 in protest of what he considers undue
influence of the President. Others would argue that these
changes are essential to prevent the deadlock that so often
stymied government action over the past decade.

-- Following a trend common in other Latin American countries
(including Colombia and Venezuela),the constitutional reform
promoted by the incumbent president would allow him to run
for immediate reelection, while the 1998 constitution
required Presidents to stay out one term before seeking the
office again. Since the new constitution resets the clock,
this means Correa could potentially stay in office for a
total of 10 years (two years now, plus two four-year terms),
or until 2017.

-- The President would gain the power to dismiss the
Congress. Not surprisingly in a country where the last three
elected presidents were overturned by popular protest, often
in tandem with the Congress, the new constitution spells out
the circumstances under which the President could dismiss the
Congress or vice versa (although the 2/3 vote requirement for
Congress to impeach the President makes it more difficult to
pull off). In either case, both presidential and
congressional elections would have to follow.

-- Among other enhanced executive powers are formulating
exchange, credit, and financial policies (while the Central
Bank will just implement them); deciding on cases in which
local communities oppose the exploitation of non-renewable
natural resources; and proposing when to authorize entry of
genetically-modified foods.

-- Limits on regional autonomy, including the revision of
some municipal control over civil registries, ports, and
airports have generated some controversy. Guayaquil mayor
Jaime Nebot will center his campaign for a "no" vote around
these concerns.


8. (SBU) The Constitutional Court would become the highest
judicial power (thus avoiding jurisdictional conflicts with
the Supreme Court) and take on expanded responsibilities.
The executive, the legislature, and the social
control/transparency functions of the state would appoint two
members each to a commission charged with selecting
Constitutional Court justices. These same three functions of
the state would also be the ones entitled to name the
Constitutional Court candidates considered by this commission.

OVERNIGHT SESSIONS TO MEET DEADLINE


9. (C) The Constituent Assembly held a 20-hour plenary
session July 18-19 where 104 requests to revise articles were
resolved. Many members of the opposition chose to leave the
session and others slept in the chamber. On average, 80 (out
of 130) Assembly members were present to vote. During this
session, PAIS introduced some changes to articles that had
already been debated and approved. For example, the
mechanism to appoint Superintendents ) the head of key
oversight institutions ) was changed to favor the Executive,
who will have the power to submit the names of the three
candidates to the newly created Council of Participation and
Transparency, which will make the final choice.


10. (C) The last-minute revisions and the presence on the
floor during the July 18-19 session of executive officials
like presidential legal advisor Alexis Mera sparked intense
criticism by the opposition, who suspected Mera of personally
writing the amended language. RED Assembly member Martha
Roldos, for example, complained that "suddenly the text
changed without debate", calling this unacceptable and a lack
of respect for the Assembly's work over the past months.
Mera's deputy told PolCouns on July 4 that his office was
reviewing carefully all constitutional articles and
highlighted the difficulty of securing the changes the
Presidency sought without appearing too intrusive. Mera
apparently didn't write all the amendments, however, because
Correa complained later about some changes he considered
unacceptable that he had not been aware of.
E

11. (C) On July 23-24, bleary-eyed Assembly members took a
slew of final actions in several more extended sessions.
They approved the rules of transition, a 30-article document
that lays out a scenario for the country's institutional
framework if the constitution wins approval in the
referendum, and another scenario in case it does not. They
also made further last-minute changes in the constitutional
text and approved a law and several mandates, some of which
have not yet been posted on the Assembly website.

CRACKS IN THE PAIS FACADE


12. (C) Reflecting continued differences within PAIS,
President Correa announced July 19 that after the referendum
he would identify around 20 Assembly members who
"infiltrated" PAIS and did not act according to the group's
internal consensus. Correa,s remarks triggered strong
reactions. Former Assembly president Alberto Acosta stated
that Correa joined the citizen revolution once it was already
underway and called his words a rebuff. PAIS Assembly member
Paco Velasco insisted that "We all have the right to think
differently." After Correa,s radio address, the media
started to track down the PAIS votes and publish the names
and pictures of Assembly members who voted against the PAIS
consensus or abstained.


13. (C) The background to these strong words was a series of
defections by a small number of PAIS members. Three PAIS
decisions in particular generated sharp internal disagreement
in recent weeks: not including Kichwa as an official
language, reducing severance payments for teachers, and
dismissing some of the 31 Supreme Court justices. Former
Assembly president Acosta joined the PAIS defectors in all
three cases. As a compromise, the Assembly decided July 23
to make Kichwa and Shuar (another indigenous language)
"official languages of intercultural communication".


14. (C) An earlier dispute that remains bitter was the PAIS
decision not to require local communities' consent before
starting non-renewable resources exploitation (antagonizing,
among others, former Correa spokesperson Monica Chuji).
Another controversy, the perceived ambiguity in the articles
on protecting life from conception, caused two members to
resign from the PAIS bloc (Ref C). On religious issues,
President Correa, a devout Catholic and smart politician, has
insisted that PAIS Assembly members agree to guarantee the
right to life, invoke the name of God in the prologue, and
prohibit civil unions for homosexuals, and was angry when
some of more liberal PAIS Assembly members continued to
challenge this. On July 24, the Assembly approved a preamble
that invoked the name of God.

COMMENT


15. (C) The last stage of legislative processes is never
pretty, and that of Ecuador's Constituent Assembly was no
exception: messy and rushed, with squabbling over the final
changes. Ecuador's draft constitution has it all - the
well-intentioned and the politically motivated, elegant legal
language and unclear, uninspired text - all produced by a
diverse PAIS majority bloc in close coordination with the
Executive and with an eye on the polls. Post will provide
further analysis of the lengthy constitutional text and
information on the transitory provisions in future cables.

CDA Griffiths