Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Nipping the CA in the Bud

.....There's that old botanical/gardening term, "Nipping it in the bud", which refers to the process of retarding (or eliminating) the growth of a flowering plant.

The phrase comes to mind as I watch the CA busily arrogating all power to itself. Yesterday, the Acuerdo Pais folks, this time with the support (collusion?) of delegates from Pachakutik and the MPD, approved the second part of the governing regs of the CA. This little piece of work says that anything the CA does supersedes the current Constitution and no decision or act taken by any court will abrogate CA acts.

All of this again flaunts the intent of the CA statute, specifically Art. 23 of that act, which clearly says that nothing the CA does can apply until the work of the CA has been ratified by a referendum of the people, subsequent to the conclusion of the CA's work. This is not a matter of asking what part of the statute is it that the AP y don't understand; rather, this is a series of clear and conscious acts of the AP et al to ignore the will of the people and accrue power to itself.

In essence, in my opinion, the CA has declared war on the Constitution and the will of the people. They want change, no doubt about it, and that's why they voted for Correa and that's why the voted for the CA and then for an AP majority in the CA.

However, nowhere, and at no time, did the majority of the people in this country vote for the closure of the sitting Congress, the firing of Correa's political enemies, and the arrogation of all political power and decision making authority to some 80+ (I put it that way, because of the duplicitous acts of the MPD and Pachakutik) people who were elected only, only, to draft a new Constitution, and nothing else.

Already, it's clear, from opinion polls (and reading Ecuadorian blogs, mostly, admittedly, anti-Correa) that most people here are not comfortable with CA actions of the last couple of days. The key question, right now, and early in this quickly deteriorating process, is, what, if anything, can and should be done about these actions?

Well, Alberto Acosta likes to be quoted saying he wants to encourage all kinds of participation, so I'd suggest that Ecuadorians start participating right now, by staging events, strikes, etc., to protest what the CA has done to date.

AP y cia are moving quickly to put us on the slippery slope to another partidocracia (this time, it'll be one big new party, with the initials AP, along with a few little remora parties sucking onto the big shark) that will tell the country what to do and how to do it, and there'll be a ratchet effect to all of this, i.e., once we get along on this process, it'll be extremely hard to reverse it because the AP will make damn sure that they'll stay in control.

For this reason, and right now, people better start speaking up and giving clear direction to the CA and the AP, because later there won't be a chance to nip the process in the bud. Correa y the AP have watched Venezuela and Bolivia closely in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of Chavez and Morales and their allies. The Ecuadorian people should watch those two countries just as closely to make sure that Correa doesn't do a better job of taking this country over and running it like he'd like to: his own "democratic" fiefdom......

2 comments:

Miguel Centellas said...

I wonder if Corre is paying attention to developments in Venezuela and Bolivia. Using "rodilla" to impose changes (even necessary changes) seems a sure way to disaster.

Tambopaxi said...

Miguel,

I think Correa is paying attention, or if not, he should be. He's gotten the simple majority vote in the CA (by far) and he and his allies are clearly using that strategem to their advantage. Still, there's that classic arrogance of power thing going on and, in Acosta's case, a willful ignorance (as in ignoring, not lack of knowledge) of past, failed attempts in social/economic engineering. I don't know, I hope I'm wrong, but these initial signals from the CA all seem to point to repetition of socialist history elsewhere in LA. Sheesh, these guys never learn.....