Ecuador Decides You Can Only Be President Twice

Quito, Ecuador —(Map)

On Sunday Ecuador held a special vote called a referendum  . The people there were deciding whether or not to put a limit on the number of times a person can be president of Ecuador. The time that a person works for a government when they are elected (as president, or governor, for example) is called a “term”. So limiting the number of times someone can be elected is often called “term limits”. The result of the vote is that in Ecuador now the same person cannot be president more than two times.

Rafael Correa was president of Ecuador from 2007 until 2017. He was president three times and wants to be president again. He pushed the Ecuadorian congress to make a law saying that there was no limit to the number of times a person could be president. Correa used to be a popular president, but now he is very unpopular. Some people even threw eggs and tomatoes at him while he was going around the country.

Lenín Moreno is the president of Ecuador now. He was vice-president when Correa was president. But now the two men are on opposite sides. President Moreno thinks that a person should only be president twice. With the new vote, President Moreno got his wish. That means he can be re-elected president one more time.

In Sunday’s referendum, the people of Ecuador voted on six different questions. The question about term limits was just one of them. Some of the other questions were about protecting the environment.