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(Editor's note: Elisa Sicouret is visiting the United States on a World Press Institute fellowship. She was in Eau Claire earlier this week as part of the journalism exchange.)

By Elisa Sicouret
Special to the Leader-Telegram, Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Imagine a surreal country where it's mandatory to vote, and where a president can be deposed for being "mentally insane." Nov. 2 is the big day for U.S. democracy — and for all of the free world, for that matter. But on Oct. 17, it will be election time in a little South American country of 13 million people, named after the equatorial line that runs through it.

Ecuador, between Colombia and Peru, will have regional elections in October to select mayors and other officials in all 22 provinces (which are similar to U.S. states). It will be a big thing, and it should be, considering that everybody is obliged to vote whether they like it or not. In my country, if you don't mark your ballot and get your electoral certificate, you're not able to renew your driver's license or get a passport. You need that little piece of paper to do just about everything. If you miss elections and are not able to vote, you have to go to the Supreme Electoral Court to give the proper explanations. Some say the fact every citizen 18 and older has to vote is part of the reason our democracy has been so chaotic over the past 10 years. You'll have to agree that something's not quite right when you've had six presidents in five years.

It started in 1997, when Abdala Bucaram was deposed after a popular revolt led by Indian communities. He later was declared by the Congress as "mentally insane and incapable of ruling the country." Bucaram's vice president, Rosalia Arteaga, declared herself as the country's new leader but was not backed by Congress. Finally, Fabian Alarcon, who was a Congressman, was designated president.

Not three years had passed when another revolt happened, this time to defeat President Jamil Mahuad. A temporary three-man government took over, but it hardly lasted a day. Eventually, Vice President Gustavo Noboa took charge and was able to finish his term in 2003. Surreal? Absolutely. Politics in Ecuador seem to be taken out of Garcia Marquez's "A Hundred Years of Solitude," where just about anything could happen.

Think that's an overstatement? Just note that our current president, Lucio Gutierrez, was a soldier who took part in the temporary three-man government that followed Mahuad's fall, went to jail for that, and in 2003 was elected chief executive by popular vote. I guess you just can't get more surreal than that.

— Sicouret is a writer for Hogar Magazine in Ecuador.