Patriotic Society Party
The Partido Sociedad Patriótica 21 de Enero ( to German Patriotic Society Party 21st January PSP ) is a political party founded in 2001 in Ecuador. It was created to support the presidential candidacy of ex-military Lucio Gutiérrez for the 2002 presidential election, which he could decide for themselves. The party's name plays on the one hand on the patriotic societies during the independence movement in Latin America of the first third of the 19th century and on the other hand, refers not to the 21th January 2000 at the Lucio Gutiérrez was the leader of a coup, the President Jamil Mahuad crashed, but ended with the permanent government takeover of the coup leaders.
Members of the party have since been mainly political friends Gutiérrez from his time as a military and campaigners in the coup as well as relatives and friends of the party 's founder. Besides Lucio Gutiérrez and his brother Gilmar, the party chairman, Colonel Fausto Cobo and the ex-cop Napoleón Villa are the most famous heads. Until their expulsion from the party also Gutiérrez wife Ximena Bohórquez belonged to the leadership circle.
2002 presidential election and presidential Gutiérrez '
Gutierrez was at the time of the coup, Colonel of the Ecuadorian army. After the coup, which ended with the swearing in of former Vice President Gustavo Noboa as the new head of state, Gutiérrez and his colleagues were arrested more than four months before Noboa pardoned, where Gutiérrez but had to end his military career. Then he decided to run for the following presidential election itself and founded his own party, whose base groups had supported the coup him in the electoral alliance with the indigenous party Pachakutik, aufstellte as a presidential candidate. With moderate social- populist rhetoric finally succeeded Gutierrez to beat, on 24 November 2002 on the second ballot with 54.3 % of the vote the conservative- populist banana magnate Alvaro Noboa, who took for his equally founded on the elections party PRIAN.
The PSP, however, was in the simultaneous parliamentary elections only 6 of the 100 seats in the National Congress, which especially became a problem after the Pachakutik changed because of inadequate social reform program in his eyes Gutiérrez 'on the side of the opposition. Gutiérrez was now forced to forge new alliances, during which he made concessions to political and legal measures, which eventually led to his own fall on 20 April 2005. He was succeeded by his vice president, in turn, the non-party Alfredo Palacio.
Gutierrez then went to exile in Brazil, the USA, Peru and Colombia, and finally return to Ecuador on 13 October 2005. He was first arrested for mutiny, but set on 3 March 2006 after the suppression of the indictment released. Originally he planned then to reapply in the presidential elections in October 2006, but this was not admitted, since its passive suffrage was suspended and beyond the Ecuadorian Constitution precludes the re-election of a president. Then went to his place to his brother Gilmar Gutiérrez, who finished surprisingly the first ballot with 17.5 % of votes in third place, but not moved into the second round. He received high proportion of votes, especially in rural and remote areas. So he took in all the provinces of the Amazon basin in which Lucio and Gilmar Gutiérrez grew up, some of them more than 50 % of the vote the first place.
In the simultaneous legislative elections the PSP was equally surprising 24 of the 100 seats and became the second strongest party after the PRIAN. Again, were especially rural provinces, especially the Amazon, where the PSP won 6 of the 10 seats to be filled, strongholds of the party. In the new National Congress of the PSP has already caused in the first session a week for excitement as the deputies were Ximena Bohórquez ( Gutiérrez ' in isolation living wife) excluded and Irina Vargas from the parliamentary group and the Parliament on the grounds that they were publicly for the plan of President-elect Rafael Correa, convened occurred and had thus violated the Frank -tion discipline a constituent assembly. This provided additional excitement as less than a week later, the party leadership led by Lucio Gutiérrez spoke for the Constituent Assembly, but without withdrawing the mandate denials.
In Parliament, the PSP will change depending on the tactical situation between opposition and pro-government parties, and has been able to occupy as a number of important offices with their own candidates, including the Ecuadorian State Auditors and the Chairman of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Jorge Acosta. However, the latter came in late February 2007 the center of a crisis of all political institutions in Ecuador, after the Supreme Electoral Court had announced a referendum on the convening of the Constituent Assembly under his presidency, which was based on a statute not approved by the National Congress. Then the PSP and allied parties Acosta deprived of his mandate for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, whereupon the 57 MPs of these parties were declared by the electoral court for obstruction of an ongoing election process to be deposed. Among the 57 members there were also those of the PSP. After the term of office of judges of the Constitutional Court was terminated in connection with this matter, retained the dismissal de facto validity. The homepage of the National Congress therefore dismissed in June 2007, only five formally belonging to the PSP deputy, the remaining spare MPs were listed as non-attached.
Regional elections
After the still in the tenure Lucio Gutiérrez ' held regional and local elections in 2004 the PSP introduced the mayors of the capital cities of 22 of 219 cantons of Ecuador; another nine were elected in an electoral alliance with the PSP. The largest city, won the mayoralty of the PSP, Tena, where Lucio Gutiérrez was growing up.