Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has backed off the idea of dissolving Congress and ruling by decree and plans to revise an austerity law that triggered a bloody police revolt, a government minister said on Saturday.
On Thursday, as unrest flared across the country, Correa said he might dissolve Congress, which would have meant a call for new elections, seen as a tactic to bypass a deadlocked legislature and try to solidify his power.
“This measure is not part of the immediate scenario,” Ecuadorean Policy Minister Doris Soliz said.
PHOTO: AFP
Soliz added the government planned to rewrite the austerity law to clarify it, rather than make any major changes. She did not rule out using decree powers if the Congress continued to block laws.
“The option is there, it has no expiry date,” she said.
Shoppers flocked to Quito’s colonial center on Saturday as life returned to normal. However, heavily armed troops bolstered security in and outside the -presidential palace after the police uprising threatened to end nearly five years of relative stability in Ecuador.
Correa vowed on Saturday to round up and punish renegade police who staged the short-lived rebellion, and will investigate opponents he accuses of trying to mount a coup.
The police were angered by moves to cut bonuses and freeze promotions as part of nationwide spending cuts that Correa is trying to push through during a financial squeeze. The law takes effect today.
The rebellion was the toughest challenge yet to the leftist Correa, who remains popular for his anti-poverty programs despite a slow recovery from economic crisis in OPEC’s lowest-producing member nation and the world’s biggest banana exporter.
Three police colonels were under criminal investigation on Saturday for failing to prevent the rebellion
The three are being investigated for negligence, rebellion and -attempted assassination, -Prosecutor Gonzalo Marco Freire said.
They are: Quito’s metropolitan police chief, the provincial police commander and the head of the barracks where Correa was roughed up and tear gassed when he went to confront angry police. Ordered arrested on Friday, they were released Saturday on their own recognizance by a judge who barred from leaving the country.
Freire said that the three “should have known what their subordinates were doing.”
Under the state of siege declared during Thursday’s unrest, their 24-hour detention could have been extended indefinitely. The state of siege expires today, but could be renewed.
Correa contends the daylong revolt by hundreds of police over benefit cuts, which turned violent and ended with him being spirited out of a hospital in a shootout between loyal troops and rebels, amounted to a coup attempt.
However, no one ever stepped forward Thursday to identify -themselves as leading the revolt. And, though several hundred soldiers briefly shut down Ecuador’s two main airports, the military high command remained loyal.
In his weekly television address Saturday, Correa said authorities intercepted radio transmission during the insurrection in which “kill Correa, kill the president” is heard. He did not specify who was speaking or exactly when.
Correa said one of the fatalities of Thursday’s violence was a police officer who was escorting the SUV in which the president was spirited out of a hospital where he’d been trapped all day by rebel cops.
Images the government provided of the vehicle on Friday show it was hit by five bullets, four on the hood and one that damaged the windshield.
On Saturday, Correa attended the funeral of a student killed during the rescue mission. He declared himself “destroyed” by the loss of life, though he said he considered the outcome “a political victory for the government.”
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