One thing I've been pondering over the last few months is why Correa keeps putting up with Acosta, especially as this pest appears to be just a left wing - nut with a small minority of support.

Anything I'm missing ? What power base does this wingnut have that isn't obvious?

The power to drive our share price down 30%. That much is obvious.

If you can't stop mining altogether, then keep throwing up obstacles until the market gets tired of you and loses interest. That's the outcome I see here, regardless of how this vote goes.

I just finished reading an article in El Diario (Manibi): http://tinyurl.com/6ouv9s that points out how Ecuador is losing investment to Peru. Not foreign investment, mind you. Ecuadorean investment. Ecuadorean businesses are voting with their feet and choosing to relocate, or set up new operations in Peru.

The people behind Acosta have vested interests, you can be sure of that. There's big money selling real estate to retiring gringos, and eco-tours to Sierra Club types. It may not benefit the nation as a whole, but somebody's making money. Rumors also circulate (which Correa has repeated) of foreign mining companies bankrolling environmentalists to slow mining development and presumably pick off choice properties at a bargain. If true, the cynic in me says these interests are more than willing to wait for this govt. to fail, at which point they'll lobby the next one for more favorable terms.

From everything I've read, Ecuador is on the fast track to nowhere. They lurch from one crisis to another, some of them natural, like the recent flooding, but most of them man-made. The main problem is a lack of basic knowledge about running an economy. These people are, for the most part, amateurs. Power fell into their lap unexpectedly, and now they are determined to change things to fit their image of how they ought to be, rather than starting with the facts on the ground and aiming for gradual improvement. Idealists, in other words.

How much damage they'll cause, and how long they'll be tolerated is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't give them much chance in the next election. Their constitution may not even pass the referendum, and then what?

The opposition is biding its time. No need to push against a wall that is already crumbling. Let gravity do it's job, as it always does when people try to defy it.

ebear