Ecuador's Correa won't run again in 2017

Quito, May 24 (IANS/EFE) On the eve of his inauguration for another four-year term, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said Thursday that he will not run again in 2017.

"We are all necessary, but nobody is indispensable," the 50-year-old head of state said in a television interview, expressing confidence that his Alianza Pais movement will have found a new leader by the time the next presidential election rolls around.

Correa, a US-trained economist who first took office in 2007, convened an early election in 2009 under the new constitution he promoted.

He won that contest and was re-elected in February of this year, garnering nearly 57 percent of the vote in a field of seven candidates.

Alianza Pais also secured a comfortable majority in Congress.

"We have advanced a lot, the country is totally different from what we received six years ago," Correa said, though adding that "much remains to be done".

His chief aim, he said, is "to change the relations of power" to a sufficient degree that "the traditional powers no longer dominate in the country".

Ecuador is set to earn around $5.7 billion from oil production and exports this year and some $4 billion of that total will go toward funding the government, the president said.

The administration's goals for the next four years include an overhaul of the financial system to ensure that Ecuador's destiny is determined by the people, not capital, Correa said.

Discussing his desire to devote more resources to children and education, the president stressed that fulfilling those aspirations depends on diversifying "the productive matrix" and creating a "knowledge economy".

--IANS/EFE

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