Moreno announces seven questions to appear on the national referendum ballot

As expected, Ecuador’s voters will decide whether Rafael Correa will be allowed to run again for president. The question is one of seven that will appear on a national referendum announced Monday night by President Lenin Moreno.

Moreno Monday at the Presidential Palace.

Voters will be asked if they want to return to the original constitutional language that allowed presidents to serve two four-year terms. In 2015, Correa pushed an amendment through the National Assembly that allowed indefinite reelection.

Among other referendum questions are one that will ask voters if they want to require direct election of the members of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS). The council, established by Correa and currently made up of appointed members, has been criticized as an over-reach of executive authority.

Other questions on the ballot will ask voters if they want to eliminate the Law of Good Will that added new taxes on inheritance and real estate capital gains that Correa considered “excessive profits”; if public officials convicted of corruption should be banned for life from holding public office; if the special protection area of the Yasuní nature preserve in the Amazon should be enlarged; if stricter environmental rules should be applied to mining concessions; and, if penalties for sexual abuse of children should be strengthened.

Not included in Moreno’s questions are one that would have voided Ecuador’s controversial  communications law and another that would have required a public vote on mining. In earlier comments, Moreno said that those and other issues were better handled through the National Assembly.

Before a referendum date can the set, the questions must be reviewed by the country’s constitutional court.