Ecuador is a small nation situated along the Pacific coast of South America (see Figure 1 ). Located between Colombia and Peru, two major cocaine-producing countries in the Andean region, Ecuador is strategically important to the United States. In addition to being a major transshipment point for U.S.-bound illegal drugs, it has been used as a refuge by Colombian terrorist groups seeking to rest, resupply, and transport drugs. At one time, it was also the destination for thousands of refugees fleeing Colombia's internal armed conflict who crossed into Ecuador along its porous northern border. Rafael Correa, elected president three times (2007-2017), was one of Ecuador's most enduring leaders. Although the United States traditionally has had close relations with Ecuador, under Correa's leadership the relationship grew tense due to his populist governing style and his combative, self-described "anti-imperialist" stance. Friction between the two countries culminated in the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador in 2011 related to disclosures in confidential diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks. Although the United States and Ecuador restored full diplomatic relations in 2012 with the appointment of a new U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, tensions between the countries remained. President Correa called his reform approach a "Citizens' Revolution" and placed it in the tradition of "21 st century socialism" personified by populist leaders of Venezuela and Bolivia. An earthquake on the country's northwest coast in April 2016 left more than 4,000 injured and 651 dead and led to the displacement of some 30,000 people. The Correa government estimated that earthquake damage to infrastructure exceeded $3.3 billion. Belt-tightening measures taken by the government in response to a significant decline in oil revenues had exacerbated political tensions, and President Correa struggled with low approval ratings in 2016, when Venezuela and Bolivian leftist populist leaders in South America and President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua also faced greater internal and external criticism. In 2016, the Ecuadorian economy contracted by 1.6%, although it recovered in 2017 with a 1.3% expansion. Former Vice President Lenín Moreno won a narrow victory in April 2017 presidential elections on the Alianza País (AP) party ticket. President Moreno veered away from former President Correa soon after he came to office. Moreno called a national referendum on February 4, 2018, that openly challenged some of the Correa government's efforts to centralize power, including abolishing indefinite reelection and limiting tenure to two terms, turning back a measure that had insured the judiciary contained only presidential supporters, and making mining off-limits in indigenous and protected areas. The referendum's seven measures won handily, with greater than 60% voter approval. President Moreno faces economic challenges and will have to rely on his supporters within the now-divided AP governing party in the legislature to move reform efforts and deal with governance challenges. Correa—who returned from Europe, where he was living for a period with his Belgian wife, to fight the referendum advocated by President Moreno—managed to convince about a third of AP members of congress to join him in forming a new party. In January polling, President Moreno continues to enjoy a popular approval rating of near 70%, which in 2018 is perhaps the highest level of support for a president in the Western Hemisphere. Ecuador has a relatively long experience with democracy, but it has been marked by frequent cycles of instability. Since its independence in 1830, regionalism and personalism have defined Ecuador's political culture. Following a return to democracy in 1979 after nine years of military rule, political party splits, bureaucratic ineptitude, and corruption proliferated. Voters have periodically blamed incumbent governments for the country's problems and often have turned to populist, anti-traditional party candidates to govern. In 2007, Ecuador ended a decade of political and economic instability with the election of Rafael Correa, a left-leaning, U.S.-trained economist. Before running for public office, Correa was a professor of economics and served as finance minister during the previous Alfredo Palacio Administration. Correa built a broad coalition of support for his first presidential campaign that included Ecuador's organized indigenous population, Ecuador's poor, trade unions, environmentalists, and others who were disenchanted with the highly unstable national government. Once elected, Correa succeeded in rallying the nation to support a referendum to rewrite Ecuador's constitution. The new constitution, Ecuador's 20 th , was written by an elected Constituent Assembly, and the new constitution increased the power of the executive and allowed the president to run for two consecutive terms. As required under the new constitution, in 2008 new elections were then organized for president, vice president, members of the unicameral National Assembly, and provincial and local offices. President Correa was elected in 2008 and took office in April 2009. His party— Alianza País (AP), or Country Alliance, which is sometimes compared to a political movement—won the most seats in the National Assembly, although it did not win a majority. Ecuador's economy benefitted from oil price increases beginning in 2006 with petroleum selling at $52 a barrel and reaching $98 a barrel by 2013. The Correa government effectively used petroleum exports to invest in infrastructure and economic development. The Administration increased public expenditures, including conditional cash transfer programs to those living in poverty. According to statistics provided by the Correa government, the poverty rate in Ecuador declined from about 38% in 2006 to 25.8% in 2014, with the extreme poverty rate falling by more than half. The World Bank estimates that poverty declined to a level just under 23% in 2016. Despite broad popularity over many years, many observers viewed President Correa as "prickly" and very defensive in response to criticism; some analysts described Correa as a charismatic populist leader with authoritarian tendencies. In his first term, strong economic growth permitted President Correa to implement redistributive policies that provided benefits to Ecuador's majority lower-income groups. President Correa's Citizens' Revolution, as he called his ideology, incorporated themes of economic justice and Andean pride with a critique of the traditional partisanship of Ecuadorian politics. In September 2010, President Correa faced a police uprising over pay and work conditions that resulted in five deaths, which Correa and his supporters called an attempted coup. Some observers viewed Correa's brash response to the police rebellion as a way to burnish the president's reputation. Critics noted that he continued to centralize political power in the presidency, politically influenced the judiciary, and targeted media and political opponents. In 2011, President Correa won a lawsuit against El Universo newspaper for a column critical of the president. The court found in President Correa's favor, and the ruling would have resulted in a $40 million fine as well as jail time for the journalist, but after significant international criticism the president pardoned the newspaper's executives and the columnist. According to Human Rights Watch and other nongovernmental organizations, the Correa government's efforts to reform the justice system instead politicized it as the government harassed and punished its critics. On February 2013, Correa ran for a second term and won with 57% of the vote. Correa's share of the vote was more than 30 percentage points higher than his nearest rival, Guillermo Lasso, of the center-right Movimiento Creando Oportunidades (CREO) party. In addition to the presidency, Correa's AP won a strong congressional majority with 100 seats in the 137-seat National Assembly. President Correa became the first leader in Ecuador since the late 1970s to enjoy sustained popularity across the regions and a broad array of class and demographic groups. In mid-2013, the president issued an executive decree (Decree 16) that allowed the government to disband civil society organizations for any of a variety of reasons, including compromising the interests of the state, disrupting public order, or moving away from the objectives for which they were created. In a notable case in 2014, Ecuador's Media Oversight Commission, set up by Correa through a highly restrictive communications law passed by the AP-dominated legislature, fined the daily newspaper El Universo and required cartoonist Xavier Bonilla (known as Bonil) to amend his drawing that depicted a police search of the home of someone who defamed Correa. In 2015, the country fell by 13 places in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. Opposition to President Correa formed in the summer of 2015 and lowered the president's approval rating. In August 2015, the major labor union confederation called a national strike in response to what they viewed as a restrictive new labor code and unfair pension changes. The union members were joined by other protestors, including right-leaning opponents of proposed legislation to sharply increase real estate and inheritance taxes and the once pro-Correa indigenous organization Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador , or CONAIE. Human Rights Watch criticized the Correa government's use of excessive force and arbitrary arrests of nonviolent protesters during this time. President Correa introduced legislation to allow indefinite reelection in the National Assembly late in 2014. The legislature, dominated by Correa's political party, which held two-thirds of the seats, appeared likely to approve the change. Government efforts to push through a constitutional amendment permitting indefinite reelection were criticized, because many citizens wanted to see the change put to a national referendum—even if they planned to vote in favor of Correa in the 2017 national elections. Support for the referendum reportedly exceeded 80%. Many analysts maintained that changes to the constitution would easily win approval in the National Assembly.