Posted on 06/23/2007 5:50:21 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) -- Ecuador's president toughened his stance against Congress on Saturday, saying that a special assembly elected to write a new constitution for the politically turbulent country should dissolve the lawmaking body.
``I thought the constituent assembly wouldn't have to dissolve Congress ... but with this kind of Congress we're not going to be able to do anything,'' Rafael Correa said in his weekly radio address.
The assembly ``will have to dissolve Congress,'' he said.
Earlier this year, Correa's insistence that the 130-member assembly, which Ecuadoreans are scheduled to elect on Sept. 30, have the power to dissolve the lawmaking body and dismiss any elected official, drove the country into a legal crisis that left Congress closed for more than a month.
He later softened his stance, saying the assembly should only limit Congress' functions.
Correa, whose party holds no seats in Congress, has called the lawmaking body ``a sewer of corruption'' and blamed the traditional political parties for much of Ecuador's instability.
Ecuador's eighth president in a decade, Correa has vowed to write a new constitution to reduce the power of the ``political mafia'' he says runs the country. The need for the assembly was overwhelmingly approved in a national referendum in April.
Ours or theirs? I’d almost agree with him if he was talking about the U.S. Congress, especially with the way they are ignoring the will of the people, lately.
I had the same exact thought.
By the way, he’s railing against a legislative monopoly and a sewer of corruption... are we sure this guy isn’t Governor of New Jersey?
I don’t “almost”agree with him, I DO agree with him.
Not a big fan of the Constitution then, I take it?
Our congressmen aren’t either.
That's the sort of popularity level that can and does result in a military coup in many countries.
Ecuador's problems are different. First of all, what happens there is not a serious concern for anyone who doesn't live in Equador.
ping.
Communist.
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