Development: On 9 May the latest count of votes in the 10 question national referendum suggested that the government has probably lost on at least two issues.

Significance: The problem areas are the two most controversial: judicial reform and control of the media. Just as importantly, even where the government appears to be winning, it is doing so only narrowly. Furthermore, if blanks and spoilt ballots are included, a clear majority of voters is in favour of only four of the government's 10 proposals. This effective defeat means that President Rafael Correa's use of populist votes to steam-roller his opponents has come to an end. Rashly, President Correa had threatened during the campaign to resign if voters rejected his 10 proposed reforms. Technically, they may not have done so, but the public has signalled that it wants a change in the way Correa governs.

Key points:

• The government appears to be preparing to accept its defeat, though it's grumbling about the slow count. President Correa argues, correctly, that the opposition media is jumping the gun by claiming that he has been defeated on at least two questions; pointing out that a majority of votes has not yet even been counted. Embarrassingly for the government however, it's clear that the exit poll it used to claim victory immediately after the polls closed on 7 May was badly wrong.

• Correa's defeat has implications for both Venezuela and Bolivia, whose controversial and charismatic leaders also use national referenda to give them the political and moral authority to push through radical change. In 2007 President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela accepted defeat in a national referendum on constitutional reform, including a proposal for indefinite re-election, but went back to the voters in 2009 and got the result he wanted. The scale and complexity of Correa's May 2011 referendum means that it would be difficult for him to do what Chávez did. 

• So far, the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) has counted 47.5% of the ballot boxes. Strangely, the count has been fastest in opposition areas, but in the heavily populated states like Guayas, Pichincha, Los Ríos, Manabí and Esmeraldas, fewer than a third of the boxes have been counted. The opposition and the government are complaining about the CNE's scrupulous refusal to include ballot boxes in the count where it has found anomalies. In Guayas, where the opposition mayor of Guayaquil, Jaime Nebot, claims that the "No" campaign defeated the government on at least five questions, the count is only up to 30% of ballot boxes.

• Nationally, the government is losing on Question Four, which would effectively have given the government 18 months of complete power over the appointment and sacking of judges. It is narrowly behind on question nine, which assigns the government the power to regulate the media.

• The surprising success of the opposition is prompting opposition leaders to compete for the credit. On 8 May Gustavo Larrea, who was formerly Correa's security minister but opposed the changes the president advocated, argued that a narrow victory for the government was as good as a defeat. Larrea, who headed the ‘Esta Vez No' (‘This time no') campaign, said that the referendum had weakened the government and compromised its mandate to push through reform.

Pointer: The four questions on which the government has clearly won are the first two (which, taken together, would end automatic release of suspects accused of serious crimes from prison after 12 months if they have not been convicted); question six (which calls for a new criminal category of ‘non-justified enrichment') and question 10, which would have criminalised employers who fail to make social security payments.