Eduardo González
A total of 196,249 Ecuadorians will be able to participate on November 16, 2025, in the referendum called by President Daniel Noboa to decide, among other issues, whether to initiate a new constitutional process and whether to allow the presence of foreign military bases in the country.
According to the Ecuadorian Embassy in Spain, the vote will take place in 19 polling stations throughout Spain, located in the main cities with large Ecuadorian communities.
During this process, citizens will be able to vote on four official questions approved by the National Electoral Council of Ecuador (CNE): elimination of the prohibition on establishing or ceding foreign military bases, elimination of state funding for political parties and movements, modification of the electoral system and number of assembly members, and convening and establishing a Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution.
In the last general elections on April 13, 2025, 189,654 Ecuadorians were eligible to vote in Spain. For this Referendum and Popular Consultation, the number has risen to 196,249. “The Embassy of Ecuador calls on the Ecuadorian community residing in Spain to become informed and exercise their right to vote responsibly, peacefully, and civically,” the press release concludes.
Nearly 14 million Ecuadorians are eligible to vote in the country’s 24 provinces. In addition, another 481,373 Ecuadorians will be able to exercise their right to vote from abroad. President Noboa has received permission from the National Assembly to campaign for the “Yes” vote until Thursday, November 13, while both the opposition supporters of former President Correa and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) have called for a “No” vote.
One of Noboa’s goals is to draft a new Constitution that supersedes the 2008 Constitution, approved during the presidency of Rafael Correa (2007-2017). The referendum coincides with a sharp increase in violence, one of Noboa’s major battlegrounds since taking office in 2023.
For its part, the United States government is particularly interested in having Ecuadorians authorize the installation of its military bases in the country, as it did in the Galápagos Islands during World War II and in the coastal city of Manta between 1999 and 2009. Correa’s current Constitution prohibits the presence of foreign forces in Ecuador.