Breakdown in Ecuador

THE POLITICAL turmoil threatening Latin America this year has now spread to Ecuador, a small and poor Andean country that already had more than its share of trouble. On Wednesday President Lucio Gutierrez was forced from power by a combination of angry crowds of demonstrators, a signal of no confidence from the military and a hasty vote by the Ecuadoran Congress. That last act, and the quick accession to power of Vice President Alfredo Palacio, provided a veneer of constitutionality to the curtailment of an elected president's term. But like Bolivia before it, Ecuador is suffering from a dangerous crumbling of the political order it has lived by since it embraced civilian democratic rule 25 years ago.

Mr. Gutierrez has been one of the main protagonists of that breakdown. A former army officer, he led a coup against an elected president in 2000 before winning election himself in 2002 on a platform of leftist populism. Once in office he reversed course, embracing the fiscal policies urged on Venezuela by the International Monetary Fund; this had the predictable effect of enraging his former supporters among Ecuador's indigenous people. Mr. Gutierrez completed his wrecking job by launching an unconstitutional assault on the judiciary in December, packing the Supreme Court and using it to rehabilitate another ousted president and demagogue, Abdala Bucaram. The crowds who besieged government buildings in Quito last week were angry about the president's autocratic behavior but also at the entire political establishment: Though Mr. Palacio was an opponent of Mr. Gutierrez, he, too, found himself under siege.

Mr. Palacio, a 66-year-old cardiologist with limited political experience, has announced a plan for constitutional reforms to strengthen the judiciary and local government before new elections are held. It remains to be seen whether that plan will satisfy his angry public, but Ecuador, like a growing number of Latin American nations, desperately needs assistance in shoring up democratic institutions. It doesn't help that the Organization of American States, which once aspired to provide such support, is now paralyzed over the choice of a new secretary general. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who regards Ecuador as part of the "Bolivarian" territory he seeks to dominate, may look to promote more populist turmoil, as he has in Bolivia.

The Bush administration still doesn't have a strategy for containing Latin America's stormy spring. Condoleezza Rice will soon depart on her first tour of South America as secretary of state -- with stops in Brazil, Chile and Colombia as well as El Salvador -- that will be her opportunity to forge a common approach with the United States' democratic allies. Such a multilateral effort, including an end to the impasse at the OAS, won't be easy given the Bush administration's poor reputation in the region, its differences with the leftist governments of Chile and Brazil, and the continuing obstructionism of Mr. Chavez. But it is the best way to help countries such as Ecuador and arrest a dangerous trend.