A Pair of Rival Protests Demonstrates the Split Over Ecuador’s Leader

Opposition groups and supporters of Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez staged competing marches Wednesday that brought at least 100,000 people into the streets of this capital.

The marches came amid international criticism of Gutierrez’s efforts to gain control of the Supreme Court and fears that the country’s increasingly tense and polarized political climate could degenerate into violence.

Led by Quito Mayor Paco Moncayo, the opposition accuses Gutierrez of stacking Ecuador’s high court with his cronies. On Dec. 9, the Congress voted to dismiss 27 of the 31 members of the court, as Gutierrez and his backers had demanded. The justices were quickly replaced with Gutierrez allies.

“This is a demonstration that says, ‘Enough!’ ” Moncayo told protesters at the anti-Gutierrez rally. “This is the flame that will ignite the country so that it returns to democracy, to liberty and the constitution.”

Opposition leaders have appealed to the Organization of American States to condemn the president, saying he has subverted the rule of law and become a thinly veiled dictator. A government commission will travel to OAS headquarters in Washington next week to argue Gutierrez’s side.

Gutierrez is a former colonel who participated in a successful 2000 uprising against President Jamil Mahuad. He was elected president two years later amid high hopes that he would rid the country’s political system of corruption, but he has since split with many of the Indian leaders who helped bring him to power.

As some opponents have sought his impeachment, Gutierrez has become increasingly populist in his rhetoric.

Last week, his press secretary told reporters that the president considered himself un dictocrata, or a “dictocrat,” protecting the poor against the country’s “corrupt oligarchy.”

“This president has a body made of rubber,” Gutierrez told supporters Wednesday from the balcony of the presidential palace overlooking the Plaza Grande in central Quito. “All the accusations of the oligarchs bounce off me.”

The marches Wednesday took parallel routes, separated by a few blocks. The federal government said it had placed 5,000 additional police officers on the streets to quell any violence and keep the opposing demonstrators apart.

“This is the march for peace,” the president told his supporters as his detractors gathered in the Plaza San Fernando nearby. Of his opponents, the president said: “On the outside, they look pretty. On the outside, they color their hair and get plastic surgery. But on the inside, they stink.”

In the days leading up to the marches, Gutierrez’s supporters denounced the opposition’s planned demonstration as an “attempted coup.”

Local media estimated that more than 100,000 people marched against Gutierrez and that about 50,000 rallied in support of him. There were reports that Gutierrez supporters had paid some people $10 or more to take part in their march.

Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney expressed her concern that events in the country might spin out of control. Others have likened the conflict to that in Venezuela, which has been sharply divided by the rule of populist President Hugo Chavez.

Times staff writer Tobar reported from Buenos Aires and special correspondent Perez from Quito.