Ailing Ecuadorean Strongman Resigns

QUITO, Ecuador -- Former President Leon Febres Cordero, whose center-right Social Christian Party long dominated Ecuadorean politics, has resigned from Congress and political life, citing unspecified medical problems.

Congressman Alfonso Harb, a top-ranking Social Christian Party official, made the announcement Friday on Febres Cordero's behalf soon after the new Congress, elected last October, was sworn in for the new term.

"Today the nation bids farewell to the public activity of the country's most important servant over the last 30 years," Harb told reporters.

He said Febres Cordero, 75, made the decision "because of physical ailments and also on medical advice that at this time he cannot be immersed in tense situations that could aggravate his physical condition." Harb did not elaborate.

A chain smoker, Febres Cordero is the survivor of five heart bypass operations and two bouts with cancer since his 1984-88 presidential term.

He told The Associated Press in an interview last August: "My best friends are my cigarettes and my pistols. They don't ask for anything and they're always ready."

Febres Cordero is a bitter foe of President-elect Rafael Correa, a leftist economist at odds with lawmakers over his proposed national referendum on rewriting the constitution.

During his presidency, Febres Cordero became then-President Ronald Reagan's leading ally in South America by embracing free market policies and criticizing Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.

But he also counted among his friends Cuba's Fidel Castro, though the two were ideological opposites.

A wealthy businessman and a power broker nicknamed "the owner of the country," Febres Cordero dominated Ecuador's courts and its fragmented Congress during the last 15 years.