Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s leftist president, claimed victory on Sunday night in his bid to approve the volatile Andean nation’s 20th constitution, opening the way for him to potentially stay in power until 2017.

Exit polls showed voter support for the constitution at 66 per cent to 70 per cent, well in excess of the simple majority required for passage of the draft constitution.

“This is a historic moment that transcends by far the people who by luck or accident have been involved in this process,” Mr Correa told his supporters in the opposition stronghold of Guayaquil.

The president is expected to move quickly to call elections early next year. Under the new constitution, he has the power to dissolve Congress and is entitled to two consecutive terms in office.

The constitution also transfers monetary policy powers from the central bank to the president, legalises the appropriation and redistribution of idle farmland, bans big landholdings, allows for popular referenda without authorisation of Congress, and raises mandatory spending on health, education and social security.

Mr Correa will also have the power to appoint controlling majorities in the supreme, constitutional and electoral courts and exclusive authority over the budget.

César Montúfar, a Quito-based analyst, said Mr Correa was offering a state “built exclusively around the presidential persona”, by pushing aside opposition parties, media and other institutions.

Mr Correa has in the past sent jitters through bond markets in the past with threats to default on the country’s $3.8bn in foreign debt, but many voters warm to his nationalist rhetoric and his attacks on the country’s elites.

Patrick Esteruelas, Latin America analyst at Eurasia Group, said the constitution would offer strengthened political stability in the short-term, at the risk of weakening Ecuador’s economy. The risk of a default in the near future was low, but would rise as Mr Correa’s administration battled rising spending pressures.

Voters in Quito’s La Floresta parish were divided. Zoila Pilguarán, 65, said: “I came to reinforce the ‘no’ vote. We’re not satisfied. The government is wasting money on campaigns like no government before it,” she said. “Subsidies are making people lazy.”

But Jorge Vasquez said: “There are many good things in the constitution. The president is doing justice by wiping out the rich and corrupt.”