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Ecuadorian Prez: Stepping Down?

A big story’s gaining momentum here at latitude zero: Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez is facing a scandal that could prove to be his undoing.

Gutierrez is denying allegations that he received a $30,000 campaign contribution from Cesar Fernandez, a suspected drug trafficker. And, as VOA News reports:

President Gutierrez’s brother-in-law, Napoleon Villa, has quit as head of the governing Patriotic Society Party. The president has also accepted the resignation of his tourism minister Hernan Plaza, who has admitted that he once rode in the accused drug lord’s airplane.

According to this Reuters article, Gutierrez has said he’ll resign if the charges of accepting dirty money are proven true.

But this MercoPress article says 1) “the Ecuadorian cabinet” is quitting today; 2) Lucio claims he won’t step down; and, amazingly, 3) “486 kilos of pure high grade cocaine” were found on the plane in question:

This Monday the Ecuadorian cabinet will be resigning in an effort to ease the pressure on beleaguered President Lucio Gutierrez because of the alleged link of some high officials of his administration with narcotics gangsters.

President Gutierrez who took office last January, anticipated that even if this proves to be true, �I will not resign�, as the opposition is demanding. �Someone could, behind my back, receive some small amount of money�, admitted Mr, Gutierrez who nevertheless added that the possibility of that happening �was very small�.

Just in case Mr. Gutierrez sacked his Tourism Minister Hern�n Plaza, who admitted having used an aircraft belonging to a notorious international narcotics gangster from Sinaloa, M�xico C�sar Fernandez. The aircraft was later detained and found to be transporting 486 kilos of pure high grade cocaine.

Stay tuned for more details…

(Oh, and by the way, I’m proud to say I’m spreading news of this story before Al Giordano, the king of Latin American breaking news, could cover it.)

Update (2:30 p.m. Eastern): This article in today’s Washington Post, though it doesn’t address the new scandal, describes Gutierrez’s break with Ecuador’s indigenous movement. The deveoping money flap could be a galvanizing issue for the country’s disenfranchised Indians–who are already planning protests against Gutierrez, who they view as a traitor, as early as next month. Could Ecuador be the next Bolivia? Will the country’s indigenous population force Lucio out of office? I don’t know.

And CNN is now running an AP story that says:

President Lucio Gutierrez’s entire 15-member Cabinet will tender its resignation next month, Interior Minister Felipe Mantilla said Thursday.

“The ministers, acting freely, will present their resignation to the president in December,” Mantilla told reporters. He did not explain the move.

Unlike in some countries in the region, Ecuadorean Cabinet ministers do not customarily tender their resignations at the end of each year.

Government spokesman Marcelo Cevallos rejected speculation that the mass resignation could generate a political crisis, adding that Gutierrez “can ask all of us to resign when he finds it convenient.”

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