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 One
of the requirements for leading a nation is the ability to make the tough
choices and decisions which face Presidents and Prime Ministers on a
daily basis. One such choice was faced by Lucio Gutierrez, the President
of Ecuador, yesterday when he had to choose between attending military
exercises outside the coastal beach town of Playas, and receiving the
most beautiful women in the world, candidates for the title of Miss Universe,
arriving for the pageant at the airport of the Andean capital, Quito.
Gutierrez was a young colonel in the Ecuadorian army when he first arrived
at the presidency in January 1997, as part of a Romanesque triumvirate
(one ambitious colonel, one indigenous leader and one failed politician)
which
shared
power for a surrealistic 72 hours following the overthrow and expulsion
of criminally incompetent Abdala Bucaram. When calmer heads prevailed,
the President of the Congress, Fabian Alarcon, took over as per the latest
edition of the Ecuadorian constitution. After being booted from the Army
and serving a few months in the can, Gutierrez reinvented himself as
a politician, winning the Presidency in legitimate elections in 2002.
So how did this ex-soldier handle the conflict between a presidential
presence at the opening of the Miss Universe extravaganza, embraced by
Ecuadorians as their debut on the international stage of sophistication
and culture, and the chance to set off several hundred thousand dollars
worth of super-sized firecrackers, missiles and assorted other military
ordinance? The eternal male dilemma – love or war, fucking or fighting.
Why, he went to the beach of course, with all of his overgrown boy-buddies
in uniform, for the fireworks.
But Lucio didn’t get to the Presidency – twice – by being simple. By
sending his wife, the First Lady of Ecuador, up to Quito to receive the
Misses, he was free to frolic on the beach, and he followed up the military
exercises with an official visit to San Isidro, a small town further up
the coast towards Colombia.
He went with his Minister of Agriculture, his chief of staff –
and his young lover, María Manuela Bonilla, who just happens to
be from San Isidro (see photo as they toured the town yesterday).
Despite, or perhaps because of, its deep Catholic roots, the public presence
of
mistresses
is an
acceptable
reality
in Ecuador,
even at the highest levels. In this case Lucio had María named
to an invented position in his political party "Alternate Deputy" so she
had at least a transparent excuse to accompany him on official business.
Local rumor has it that the young beauty has the President completely in
her thrall, and when he asked her what she wanted for her birthday she
asked only that her natal town be raised to the level of Canton, making
it eligible for increased funding, graft, and political pull. Hence
the trip.
Just imagine – if only the United States had the suave sophistication
and Constitutional plasticity of Ecuador, we could still have Bill Clinton
as President!
article and photo from El
Mercurio de Manta (Spanish)
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