QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa said on Saturday he plans to defend his socialist government with a network of citizen committees, a move that suggests he is radicalizing his “revolution”.

Correa, who took office for a second term on Monday vowing to deepen socialist reforms in the Andean OPEC nation, said his government is under threat from wealthy elites and needs to mobilize its supporters.

“We need to organize committees for the defense of the revolution in every neighborhood,” said Correa, an ally of Cuba’s President Raul Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, both leftists who have similar groups in their countries.

The plan is likely to draw criticism from his opponents who say Correa is too close to communist Cuba, where neighborhood watch groups called Committees for the Defense of the Revolution report activities considered counter-revolutionary.

Though widely popular, Correa appears to be worried that a coup that ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras in June could be repeated in Ecuador, where three presidents have been toppled in the last decade.

“There are tiny groups here with huge economic power that at a given point could undermine the government,” Correa said in his weekly media address.

“We may have a lot of popular support, but if we don’t have people that take to the streets to defend their government, we could easily be destabilized,” said Correa.

Heavy social spending and promises to reduce the power of Ecuadorean business groups have raised Correa’s popularity among the poor and middle class who blame the country’s elites for inequality in the oil-rich country.

Venezuela’s Chavez has organized his supporters into several different groups, and has often said he will arm citizens with automatic weapons to defend his government.

Correa did not give details of how the committees would be organized, but he talked about family and neighborhood groups and said they would not carry weapons.

“The oligarchs start trembling when we tell citizens to organize, because if we organize we’ll be invincible,” Correa said.