Ecuador votes on election term limit as Correa looks on
Image copyright
Reuters
Ecuadoreans are voting in a referendum that has become a test of the enduring popularity of its former leftist President, Rafael Correa.
The poll was called by the current leader, Lenin Moreno, who was once Mr Correa's deputy but is now his staunch political opponent.
A key question is whether to scrap unlimited presidential terms and stop Mr Correa returning to power.
Opinion polls suggest voters will approve all seven measures.
They also include a proposal to bar officials convicted of corruption from politics.
Mr Correa split very publicly from Mr Moreno, who took office in May 2017 after winning an election as the candidate of Mr Correa's Alianza Pais (Country Alliance) party.
The referendum was Mr Moreno's way to "distance himself from his predecessor and consolidate his political process", said Ecuadorean news and analysis portal GK.
The referendum also seeks to ban and limit the mining of minerals in environmentally protected areas and end the statute of limitations for sexual crimes against minors.
Mr Moreno, 64, was disabled in a 1998 armed robbery and is currently the only serving head of state using a wheelchair. He was Mr Correa's vice-president between 2007 and 2013.
So this is a battle over Mr Correa's legacy?
Yes - and a deeply personal one.
Mr Moreno wants a decisive vote to mark an end to the Correa-era "Citizens' Revolution" and close the door to Mr Correa's candidacy in the 2021 election.
"Corruption sets in when you have only one government that thinks it will stay on forever," he said on the campaign trail this week, according to Reuters news agency.
But Mr Correa has called his former ally a "traitor" and said he was "trying to destroy everything that has to do with Correa", the agency reports.
Mr Correa, who in January 2018 returned from Belgium where he had been living to spearhead the "No" campaign, has called the referendum a "coup d'état".
He accuses "the right" of wanting to "invent a crime against me to disable me", said AFP news agency, referring to a referendum measure to bar those convicted of corruption from politics.
Jorge Glas, vice-president to both Mr Correa and Mr Moreno, was sentenced to six years in jail in December 2017 for his involvement in a case of bribes paid by Brazilian firm Odebrecht.
Mr Correa has not himself been convicted of any corruption. He has voluntarily agreed to testify in court on Monday as prosecutors investigate allegations of irregularities in oil sales to China and Thailand during his time in office.