Can You Say Auto-Golpe?

That's certainly what my first reaction to this was:

Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez fired the entire Supreme Court on Friday in an attempt to end a political crisis and declared a state of emergency in the capital Quito to quell protests.

"The magistrates of the current Supreme Court are declared dismissed," former army colonel Gutierrez said in a surprise television address to the nation.

He also declared the Andean mountain capital in a state of emergency, which restricts rights to assembly and expression.

Or maybe not:

But thousands of enraged citizens rushed onto the streets of Quito to defy the emergency and protest, waving flags, bashing pots and calling on Gutierrez to quit. The security forces did not immediately move to disperse them. [my emphasis]

I think that the bell is tolling for Gutierrez and he is probably through. Here's part of the problem with the likes of Gutierrez:

Gutierrez himself served jail time for leading an attempted coup in 2000.

Every democratic nation in the Americas should have a law that if you ever participate in a coup, you are permanently and irrevocably disqualified from holding elective office.

Comments

[akaky]

I take it autogolpe is not spanish for gas guzzler, then.