MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuadorian president lifts state of emergency

Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez on Saturday lifted the state of emergency that he had imposed on Quito's metropolitan area not 20 hours earlier.

Gutierrez said he had been forced to act because Congress had failed to dissolve the Supreme Court despite the judicial reform bills his administration had sent the body.

At a press conference at Carondelet presidential palace, Gutierrez said the special powers a state of emergency conferred on the president allowed him to dissolve the court single-handedly.

He had also been asked to lift his decree by congressional Speaker Omar Quintana, who spoke "on behalf of all the legislators." He had reached an agreement with Quintana, Gutierrez added, by which Congress would hold a special session on Sunday for two purposes: to ratify the Supreme Court's dissolution and discuss his judicial reform bill.

He called on Ecuador's unicameral 100-member legislature to take up the judicial bill as soon as possible. The goal, he said, is for Ecuador to achieve "the best" Supreme Court in its history, one "independent of political and economic power groups." He also called on citizens to remain calm. "In a spirit of brotherhood, let us find the best solutions to the serious problems that still afflict the republic: health, education, profound structural reforms in the electric and hydrocarbons industries, among others," he said.

Gutierrez had moved to restrict constitutional rights in response to growing popular unrest in the capital, where thousands of demonstrators gathered spontaneously to call for his resignation.

His imposition of a state of emergency, which restricts freedom of expression, assembly and movement, as well as the right to privacy in one's home, correspondence and telephone conversations, backfired, however, provoking outrage in the population, which immediately took to the streets to swell the ranks of those who had been protesting since Friday.

Despite the special state in effect since Friday, neither police or the military had interfered with protests, and radio stations continued to blast Gutierrez unimpeded. Before dawn Saturday morning, Quito's municipal council passed a resolution asking for Gutierrez's resignation and rejecting the state of emergency.

The council termed Gutierrez's move "an affront to Quito's citizens" and voted to "denounce before the international community, the United Nations, the Organization of United Cities and Local Governments, and the nations of the world the dictatorial conditions under which Ecuador is living, so as to overturn them. " Many of the thousands who demonstrated Saturday carried rolls of toilet paper "to wipe the country clean of bad politicians."

As soon as the state of emergency was lifted, hundreds of people celebrated in the streets, honking their horns and waving flags or signs lambasting Gutierrez's administration.