By IPS Correspondents
QUITO, Mar 9 2007 (IPS)

The removal of 57 of Ecuador’s 100 legislators by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) is yet another episode in the institutional crisis that has plagued this country since 1996.

The latest episode in the crisis was precipitated this week by a conflict between the parties holding a majority in Congress and the judges who hold a majority in the TSE, who enjoy the support of President Rafael Correa.

On Tuesday, with the votes of the 57 members that have now been dismissed, Congress fired TSE president Jorge Acosta, for calling a referendum to allow voters to decide whether they want to create a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution, thus bypassing congressional approval.

Congress also took legal recourse against the terms of the referendum, which would allow the Constituent Assembly, once created, to close down the legislature and dismiss its members.

Congress had approved a rival statute that would not allow such dismissals.

According to the constitution, the seven members of the TSE are designated by Congress, and represent the seven parties receiving the greatest number of votes in the elections. Acosta belongs to the populist Patriotic Society Party (PSP) of former President Lucio Gutiérrez.

The PSP decided to back Acosta’s dismissal because he had not fulfilled the party’s instructions to accept Congress’s statute for the referendum. But not all of the PSP lawmakers were present when the resolution to dismiss Acosta was approved, so they have not all been sacked now.

On Wednesday the TSE voted four against three to fire legislators who backed the resolution against Acosta, based on the argument that the country’s election laws stipulate the dismissal of any public official who “interferes with the electoral authorities” during an election period, as well as the suspension of their political rights for one year.

Members of the TSE voted along party lines, with Acosta and the representatives of the three parties supporting the government, thus achieving a majority.

On Feb. 13, when announcing the referendum on the Constituent Assembly, the TSE declared the electoral period to be “from Feb. 15 to May 15.”

Therefore, the TSE majority decision stated that Ecuador is “in what we might call an electoral state of emergency, so that no individual or association may act in any way to prevent or hinder” the electoral process.

The TSE also resolved to notify the chief of police to evict the dismissed members of Congress immediately, by whatever legal means necessary,

President Correa, who took office in January, supported the TSE decision and released a communiqué saying he would ensure the resolution was enforced.

On Thursday morning, Congress was surrounded by 350 police officers who blocked the entry of deputies, saying they were acting under orders.

Deputy Homero López Saud could not get into the legislature, even though he had not been fired by the TSE. Visibly angry, he said “this is either a coup d’état or a mistaken order from the Government Ministry.”

Later, police officers with lists in hand allowed only lawmakers who had not been dismissed, and the official alternates of those who were sacked, into the building.

Congress Speaker Jorge Cevallos then found that the sitting lacked a quorum. He said the TSE resolution would not be implemented because “it has no legal basis, and its goal is only to create conflict between institutions and generate chaos.”

Cevallos said that the law invoked by the TSE to legitimise the dismissals refers only to public officials “not elected by popular vote.”

Opinion polls by several firms have found that less than 15 percent of respondents approve of the job done by Congress, which most of the interviewees blame for the country’s institutional crisis.

Representatives of social organisations, particularly the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), gathered outside Congress to celebrate the dismissals.

Activist and former priest Eduardo Delgado, of the Common People Movement, called on all leftwing political and social sectors to form “a grand social and political alliance, called the ‘Somos Poder Constituyente’ (‘We Are the Constituent Power’) front,” to campaign in the elections for a Constituent Assembly.

The “We Are the Constituent Power” front is made up of dozens of movements and organisations throughout the country, including the powerful CONAIE.

“We are united against the old neoliberal structures of social exploitation. The Constituent Assembly should be an agent of radical change. We can’t let it be transformed into a mere factory to manufacture any old constitution,” Delgado told IPS.

Luis Maca, who is the head of CONAIE and the long-time leader of Ecuador’s powerful indigenous movement, said: “We are going to govern from the Constituent Assembly. We will sweep away the old state and do away with the privileges of a handful of rich people.”

He also announced that on Mar. 15, “We Are the Constituent Power” will hold the first “people’s pre-constituent assembly,” which will be attended by hundreds of representatives from all over the country.

Several polls indicate that the creation of a National Constituent Assembly is backed by over 80 percent of respondents.

The ongoing institutional crisis plaguing Ecuador has led to the fall of a number of presidents over the last decade.

The conservative Sixto Durán Ballén (1992-1996) was the last president to serve out his term, although his vice president, Alberto Dahik, was ousted by Congress in 1995, charged with misappropriation of public funds.

Rightwing populist Abdalá Bucaram, who succeeded Durán Ballén, lasted less than six months in power. Congress dismissed him for “mental incapacity to govern,” although this was decided without the benefit of a medical examination or legal defence.

Bucaram’s vice president, Rosalía Arteaga, claimed the presidency but was almost immediately replaced by Congress Speaker Fabián Alarcón, who acted as interim president.

Jamil Mahuad was elected in 1998, only to fall in 2000 during an indigenous uprising that was supported by rebellious junior officers (including Lucio Gutiérrez) who set up a triumvirate which lasted only a few hours.

Mahuad’s vice president Gustavo Noboa was Ecuador’s next president (2000-2003), and he handed over to Lucio Gutiérrez who won the elections in late 2002.

Gutiérrez was deposed by Congress on Apr. 20, 2005 after a week of protests by Quito residents against his government. And the crisis goes on.

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