by the El Reportero’s news services
Felipe Calderón
February has got off to an awful start for the government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. The centers of the country’s second and third biggest cities, Guadalajara and Monterrey, looked like war zones as drug gangs challenged the authorities on 31 January and 1 February. The national employers’ organization, Coparmex, says that the violence is now running at intolerable levels.
Referendum raises real disquiet over direction of Correa’s Revolution
There is nothing Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa likes more than an electoral challenge. It is fair to say, however, that he would not have expected one on the scale he now faces when he drafted a referendum calling for constitutional reforms to the penal code and the judiciary.
The referendum has caused ructions in his left-wing coalition Alianza PAÍS (AP): two cabinet members and four deputies have departed so far. But perhaps more worryingly, estranged allies and founders of his ‘citizens’ revolution’ are taking arms against the referendum, which they are portraying as an unabashed power grab. Correa is accusing them of personal betrayal; they are accusing him of betraying the principles of the Revolution. A febrile political atmosphere will prevail over the coming months.
