Ecuador Court Ratifies Lawmakers' Ouster

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Ecuador Court Ratifies Lawmakers' Ouster
By GONZALO SOLANO
Associated Press Writer

April 5, 2007, 1:05 AM EDT

QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuador's constitutional court late Wednesday upheld
a decision by the country's electoral tribunal to fire more than half of
the politically unstable nation's legislature.

The ruling was a victory for new leftist President Rafael Correa, whose
vow to write a new constitution for the politically unstable nation, drove
all three branches of the country's government into legal chaos.

The president of the Constitutional Tribunal said the court decided not
to consider a petition brought by 57 ousted legislators seeking to return
to their posts because the suit did not fulfill technical requirements.

In March, the country's highest electoral court fired the 57 lawmakers,
accusing them of interfering with a national referendum on the need for
a new charter, which has been scheduled for April 15.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-ecuador-constitutional-crisis,0,3066856.story

[Peace Patriot]

1. Beware of AP news articles on South American leftist (majorityist) topics!

Note how this AP article can't stress the phrase "the politically unstable nation" enough. They repeat it twice in the first two sentences! Don't know if it's the writers or the editors at AP, but somebody's calling Corporate Predator Headquarters and getting the "phrase of the day" from the Corporate Predators' Rovian P.R. guy, and then shaping "news" articles around the "talking point" they want to drill into your head, whether it's "the increasingly authoritarian" President of Venezuela, or "Hugo Chavez, friendofFidelCastro," or now "the politically unstable nation" of Ecuador.

Facts, facts, facts! How about some facts, guys! For instance: Chavez won election last year with 63% of the vote, in the most highly monitored elections on earth. Is that "authoritarianism" or is it the "will of the people"? Rafael Correa won Ecuador's election with 60%!

Ergo: Whatever is happening in Ecuador now, that Rafael Correa approves of, or instigates, likely has the support of SIXTY PERCENT of the people of Ecuador. Furthermore, it is likely righting a wrong. In this case, the highly corrupt, crony "legislature"--tool of the rich elite and foreign corporations--a legislature that Correa describes (in the linked Newsday article) as "a sewer of corruption"-- is getting displaced by a DEMOCRACY movement aimed at re-writing the Constitution and making the legislature MORE REPRESENTATIVE of the people of Ecuador. This is NOT "political instability." It is a DEMOCRATIC CORRECTION of a rotten system in which the rich own everything including the government.

-------------------

Note on the provenance of this AP article: Eugene, the article you quote and the link you provide don't jibe. They're both AP articles, and both contain the phrase "the politically unstable nation," but they are not the same article. Could you provide the link to the one you are quoting?

[maddezmom]

2. here's a link to the original...AP links have a history of headline and body

of the article changing. :)

Ecuador Court Ratifies Lawmakers' Ouster
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070405/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/ecuador_constitutional_crisis_1