Ecuador News & Newspapers

Updated April 21, 2005 Quito, Ecuador
by Jason Halberstadt

April 20th, the president of Ecuador, Lucio Gutierrez was ousted from power by a unanimous vote in the congress and accompanying lack of support from the military following several days of grass-roots protests in Quito. The country’s Vice President Dr. Alfredo Palacios M.D. has been sworn in as president and is urging the population to unify and quickly return to stability and peace.

The airports in Quito and Guayaquil are open and operating normally. There are no negative impacts to tourism, transportation and all tourist services are operating 100% normal.

The change of leadership was due to a series of political blunders and loss of confidence and popularity of Gutierrez over the last several months. On December 8, 2004, in an effort to strike a political deal, the president dissolved the Supreme Court and filled it with judges loyal to him and ex-president Abdala Bucaram, in exile in Panama since his ousting from the presidency in 1997. Gutierrez was openly criticized for the unconstitutionality of the dissolution of the high court, and accused of moving away from democratic law towards a dictatorship. In the beginning of April, with the support of the Supreme Court, Bucaram was allowed to return to Ecuador which fueled greater political protests against Gutierrez.

In the week leading up to the ousting of the president, nightly peaceful protests in Quito gained momentum culminating in the paralyzation of the city the morning of the 20th and special session of the congress (just half a block from the offices of EcuadorExplorer) leading to the downfall and fleeing of Gutierrez from the presidential palace via helicopter.

The Ecuadorian public is very optimistic about President Palacio. In his first days in power, he has appointed very highly qualified ministers who in most cases have an excellent reputation for being not corrupt. This has been taken as a very good sign that the new president is dediated to breaking away from the past presidents' policies and an unfortunate tradition of corrupt politics.