Correa Set for Victory in Referendum

[Judi Lynn]

Correa Set for Victory in Referendum
By Gonzalo Ortiz

QUITO, May 5, 2011 (IPS) - Pollsters predict that a majority of voters in Ecuador will approve a package of reforms backed by leftwing President Rafael Correa, in a May 7 referendum that has further polarised the population.

Spokespersons for Consult Marketing Solutions, Informe Confidencial, Perfiles de Opinión and Opinión Pública Ecuador informed IPS that between 51 and 60 percent of respondents were in favour of the proposed reforms. The results of the opinion polls were provided to foreign correspondents for publication outside the country, due to the ban on releasing pre-election poll results in Ecuador.

Voting is compulsory in this South American country except for those over 65 or between the ages of 16 and 18. The pollsters estimate that at least 2.7 million of the country's 11.2 million registered voters will not cast ballots on Saturday.

Five of the 10 questions in the referendum would amend articles of the constitution, and the rest would require the passage of new laws, on a broad range of issues.

More:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55506

[Judi Lynn]

1. Ecuador to vote on bullfighting ban, media reform

Ecuador to vote on bullfighting ban, media reform
Friday, 06 May 2011 14:54

QUITO: Ecuador will vote on a raft of constitutional reforms on Saturday, including a bull-fighting ban and measures that critics have slammed as an attempt to clamp down on the free press.

The proposals on the ballot pushed by President Rafael Correa include an effort to rein in what he has called the "mediocre and corrupt" media structure in the South American nation.

Correa, in office since 2007, is also seeking to ban bull-fighting and gambling across the Andean nation.

Authorities have however dropped a controversial measure seeking to also ban cock-fighting.

More:
http://www.brecorder.com/world/south-america/13500-ecuador-to-vote-on-bullfighting-ban-media-reform.html

[Peace Patriot]

2. Um...elections tend to "polarize" the population cuz...um...they have to choose--

one candidate or another, one party or another, one policy PUT A VOTE OF THE CITIZENS or another, especially if the choices are REAL (not Tweedle-dee vs Tweedle-dum) and the elections are honest and transparent. It's kind of the nature of REAL democracy.

If all offerings to the public were, say, pro-corporate, pro-billionaire, pro-war profiteer--like we overwhelmingly tend to have here--then UNREAL "polarization" (billionaires creating a "Tea Party") can be used to pull the national political "dialogue" (er, monologue) farther and farther in a fascist direction, with the consequence that most people, frightened by "Tea Party" fascism, bounce back into Tweedle dee/Tweedle dum-ism, that is, inadvertently supporting corporations, billionaires and war profiteers. There is no real choice. The powers-that-be don't allow a real choice.

Well, in Ecuador--as in the many other LatAm countries where voters have chosen REAL leaders, because they have REAL elections--in which pro-corporate, pro-billionaire, pro-war profiteer candidates and ideas are CONTESTED BY candidates who REALLY represent the interests of the majority--this has produced genuine controversy and "polarization."

I wish we had elections like that--where REAL issues were being discussed--like how far Left to go, or how to institute a Fairness Doctrine use of the public airwaves (like we had here once), or whether an FDR-like president should be able to stand for election a third and fourth time (our Founders thought so), and how to get control over banksters and corporate scofflaws, how to retain or regain control of the country's resources, and so on.

We get to choose between the looting and destruction of Social Security or the mere looting of Social Security. We get to choose between insurance company-run health care or NO health care. And on war, we don't get to choose at all. The war profiteers do whatever they goddamn please. Meanwhile, the South Americans get to have real discussions, real "polarization" and real democracy.