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Show The Salt Lake Tribune Al0 WORLD Sunday, August 6, 2000 Mexican Crises Create Ecuadorean Exodus Congress 1 million to 3 million of country’s 12 million people nowlive overseas Has Clout No more rubber stamp to king-like presidents ‘THE WASHINGTON POST MEXICO CITY — The Mexican Congress, long an anonymous and little-respected rubber-stampoperation for presidents with king-like authority, is poised to become an independent check on the presidency for the first time in decades. This Congress, which was elected July2 and takesoffice Sept. a 1, represe! a dramatic change because no party will hold a majority in either house andthe new president, who takesoffice Dec.1, thus will no longereffectively determine onhis own howlaws are made. This, members of Congress predict, will fundamentally alter the balance of power in Mexico, whosepresident traditionally has operated with near omnipotence. Theshift has potentially enormous consequences. For example, Esteban Felix/The Associated Press Masks of President-elect Vicente Fox hang for sale in the Sonora Marketin Mexico City. He won Mexico's presidentialelection July 2. bothered to learn their names. For instance, Ricardo Garcia Cervantes,a legislator from Fox’s National Action Party, or PAN, said Chase Manhattan Bank representatives visited him last week to sound him out on the new Congress. In the past, hesaid, officials of big companies lobbied only the executive’ branch and never bothered askinghis opinion. “They're smart people,” hesaid. “They understand the realities. Why would they wantto talk to a legislator with no influence?” In this new political landscape, Mexico's 100 million citizens are expected to have more ofa voice in Congress also will largely deter- government decisions by working through their congressmen. Mexican and U.S. corporations compet- thefirst president in 71 years from ing for chunksof the$200billion in annual trade between the two countries tionto legi: will have to payattenors who have rarely minethe successorfailure of Fox, outside the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. “Fox needs Congress to get what he wants done,” said Jeffrey Weldon, a po- will “His own party is not going to be as disciplined as the PRI was with the executive branch,” said Javier Medina,congressional liaison for the commerce ministry. “He will have to lobby both ways — to the opposition, and to his ownparty.” QUITO,Ecuador — Images ofthe exodus: Every day, hundreds of Ecuadoreans hoping to settle in Europe and the United States cross paths in glingflotillas to the United States. Quito’s airport with glum countrymen who tried to the United States, Spain and Italy — and a large num- sneak into Madrid, Spain; Miami and other destinations posing as tourists and were sent back by airport immigrationpolice. Last month, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter in the Pacific intercepted a decrepit smuggling boat carrying 186 illegal immigrants, the ninth vessel from Ecuador stopped by U.S. authorities since March 1999. The migrants were headed for tion funding and overhaul corrupt law enforcement and judicial sys- fice, members of competing parties and lobbyists who never before Between 1 million and 3 million of the country’s population of 12 million nowlive overseas, mostly in berof them are in those places illegally. The New York area has a higher numberof Ecuadoreans than all but twocities in their home country. An estimated 180,000 live in Southern California. Ecuadorhas becomea textbook exampleof the scenarios that worry diplomats and immigration officials in the United States and Europe. Be- “We must work to overcome our crisis. And we must convince our people to stay home.” the United States via Guatemala, where the bodies of 19 Ecuadoreans washed ashore in October, and Mexico, where Ecuadoreansleft in an abandoned truckrecently al- set by uncertainty, this oncetranquil South American country hasturned into a redFrancisco Garrion alert origin point for accelerating illegal immigration. “What was a constant steady stream has become a massevacuation,” a U.S. Em- Ecuador's deputy foreign minister ——— most asphyxiated. As the demandfor passports has quadrupled, provincial bureaucracies have run outof passport materials. The throngat the passport office in Quito brings together well-dressed families of the fading middle class with gnarled indigenous womenin shawls and bowlerhats. Barreling past sidewalk hustlers selling places in line, a young man named Carlos emerges bassyofficialsaid. The causes are obvious. Thepast three years have broughtrecord inflation, banking collapses, 19 percent unemployment, and underemployment calculated at 60 percent. Political chaoshasled tofive presidents in five years anda brief uprising in January by army officers and indigenous groups, the continent's first from the exit turnstile holding his brand-new brown coup in two decades. Volcano eruptions and El Nino- passport as if it were a holy object. “T just wantto leave,” says the sawed-off 20-year-old related floods worsened the turmoil. from Azuay province, which has been emptied of from The resulting spike in emigration has benefited well-established migratory working-age men. “This country is all screwed up. They say the border of the United States is wellguarded. Is that true?” and criminal See’ next page tL SAVE 25% to 60%! (eee ee 125 Year pledges to vastly increase educaplayers. political generated a blizzard ofcriticism, someofit from lawmakers in his own party. A daylater, Fox's lieutenants backpedaled hard, saying the statementwas merely an idea. years. Ecuador suddenly has joined Cuba, Haiti and China onthelist of countries sending ragtag smug- iL, need congressional support to make good on_ his Someneed two cellular phones to answer the flood of calls from President-elect Vicente sought-after his proposed expansion of education and social programs. But that was immediately seenasa flip-flop from his campaign rhetoric and edented wave of emigrations during the past two LOS ANGELES TIMES litical scientist at the Technical Institute here. Fox matteredbefore... As a result, the lawm: denlyare amongthecapi predecessors hadto. Foxalready is feeling heat that PRI presidents never got from past congresses. 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