THE INSTITUTIONAL DETERMINANTS OF IMPEACHMENT

Anbal Prez Lin

Department of Government
University of Notre Dame
217 OShaughnessy Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556-0368
Perezlinan.1@nd.edu

Over the last decade, impeachment has replaced traditional military coups as the standard
way to depose presidents in Latin America. Legislatures ousted the president in Brazil
(1992), Venezuela (1993), Ecuador (1997), and Paraguay (1999). Other, unsuccessful
attempts took place in Per (1991), and Colombia (1996-7). This paper claims that two
institutional factors facilitate (or hinder) the emergence of impeachment: the constitutional
provisions for ousting the chief executive, and the presidents ability to control legislators.
Those elements are formalized in a simple model, and their historical significance is
explored in the cases of Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The conclusions suggest that
constitutional rules interact with political actors (parties, factions, and leaders) to explain
the fall of elected presidents in the 1990s.

Prepared for delivery at the 2000 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association,
Hyatt Regency Miami, March 16-18, 2000. Research for this paper was supported by the
Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the Kellogg Institute for International
Studies. I am indebted to the people at the Center for Public Opinion Studies (CESOP) at
the University of Campinas, CORDES (Quito), IESA (Caracas), the Pontificia
Universidade Catlica (So Paulo), and the Universidade de Braslia (UnB) for their
valuable help.

Over the last decade, impeachment has replaced traditional military coups as the standard
way to depose presidents in Latin America. Legislatures ousted the presidents of Brazil (1992),
Venezuela (1993), and Ecuador (1997), and forced the resignation of the chief executive in
Paraguay (1999). Other, unsuccessful attempts took place in Per (1991), and Colombia (199697). Those cases present interesting similarities and differences. In Brazil Fernando Collor de
Mello was accused of heading a corruption network. Venezuelan President Carlos Andrs Prez
was suspended from office and tried in court for public funds misuse. Ecuadors Abdal Bucaram,
in contrast, confronted a hostile congress that declared him mentally incapable to rule.
This paper explores how corruption scandals and public outrage are translated into
legislative action against the president. In an ideal democracy, members of congress would
impeach the president ifand only ifthere is sufficient proof that the president has committed a
high crime, and would restrain from proceedings which are solely grounded in partisan or
personal motivations. In reality, however, legislators are hardly able to detach themselves from the
broader social and political context in which a presidential crisis takes place. Congress may
protect the chief executive by blocking further exposure of a scandal, even ifas in the case of
President Samper of Colombiaimportant sectors of the population claim for an in-depth
investigation. Or, on the other hand, it may press charges against the president when there is no
real proof or public sentiment in favor of impeachmentas in 1955 Panama, when President
Guizado was unjustly accused of plotting the assassination of his predecessor.
The issue is highly relevant for what Mayhew (1974) called the institutional
maintenance problem. As a collective institution, congress should act in ways that strengthen its
prestige and standing in the nation. Individual legislators, however, may face incentives that
deviate their personal choices from this collective course of action.1 Loyal members of the
presidents party may be willing to protect the chief executive from any accusations, while
legislators in the opposition may be prone to push impeachment proceedings even if the charges are
not very solid.
Given such incentives, what determines the congressional decision to oust the president
from office? This paper claims that some institutional factors facilitate, while others hinder, an
impeachment process. The first part of the paper traces different constitutional traditions related to
impeachment and congressional evaluation of the presidents mental and physical capabilities. In
the second section, a simple model depicts the stylized facts of any impeachment process. The
following sections discuss the main components of this modelvoting thresholds, the size and
cohesion of the presidents party, and the capacity to build an anti-impeachment coalitionusing
examples from Latin America in the 1990s.

Legislators are aware of this problem. During the critical session of May 21, 1993 in which the
Venezuelan Senate decided to suspend Carlos Andrs Prezthus allowing the Supreme Court to initiate
the trial against the Presidentformer (and future) president Rafael Caldera claimed that the Supreme
Court has saved its prestige vis--vis the people with the decision [of prosecuting the president]. Congress
can save its prestige vis--vis a people that has recently questioned it, by giving [them] a Provisional
President, a new Government that opens new horizons (Diario de Debate del Senado. Friday, May
21, 1993: 701).
1

1.

Constitutional Law and Presidential Ousting: a Comparative View

In constitutional terms, the idea of impeachment may have three different meanings. In a
broad senseas I use it herethe term refers to any constitutional tool available to legislators to
oust the president. This is a political definition that emphasizes the outcome more than the legal
form itself. From a second, stricter perspective, the term can be used to denote a political trial
against the presidentas opposed to a mere declaration of physical or mental incapacity to rule.
In a third, even more specific sense, impeachment refers to a particular form of the political trial,
performed by a bicameral congress and shaped in the American tradition. This threefold
distinction is important to prevent conceptual confusion. When, for instance, Venezuelan
constitutional lawyers claim that their country lacks the institution of impeachment, they basically
refer to the latter, limited meaning.
In this section I discuss the constitutional provisions for the exercise of the political trial
(or impeachment in the second sense above) and for the declaration of presidential incapacity in
different presidential systems. Although virtually every congress has the right to initiate or
perform a political trial, the declaration of incapacity is restricted to a smaller number of countries.
Constitutionally, political trials performed by congress adopt two typical forms: the
congressional model (or impeachment in the third sense above), and the judicial model. This
distinction comes close to what Naoko Kada (forthcoming) has labeled legislature-dominant and
judiciary-dominant impeachment processes. The congressional model was initially devised by the
American constitution of 1787 and later absorbed with minor modifications by most South
American countries. After several debates on how to cast the British impeachment tradition in a
republican mold (Gerhardt 1996: chapter 1), the members of the constitutional convention decided
that the lower chamber would be in charge of the accusationin cases of bribery and other high
crimes and misdemeanorsand the Senate would operate as a jury in which al least two thirds of
the members would have to find the president guilty for him to be ousted. Most bicameral systems
in Latin America have followed this scheme, although the requirement of a supermajority has
sometimes been extended to the lower chamber. The Argentine constitution of 1853, for instance,
additionally demanded a two-thirds vote for the accusation in the Chamber of Deputies. In the
extreme case, the Dominican constitution of 1966 required three quarters of both chambers for an
impeachment to succeed.
In the judicial model, congress authorizes a trial to be performed by the judiciary. This
design is typical, but not restricted to, unicameral systems in which the American scheme is non
viable, and involves two stages: a political moment taking place in congresswhen the president
can be shielded from prosecutionand the trial itself, which is supposedly dominated by strictly
legal considerations.
The extreme example of this scheme is provided by the Salvadoran constitution. In El
Salvador (arts. 236, 237), the assembly admits the charges by simple majority and suspends the
president from office, but the trial against the chief executive is performed by a court of appeals
(Cmara de Segunda Instancia). The decision of this court can be reviewed by a Chamber of the
Supreme Court, and this second level of decision can be in turn overruled by the Supreme Court as
a whole. In Costa Rica, the assembly admits the charges with the vote of two thirds of its
members, but the trial is performed by the Supreme Court (art. 121).2
2

The constitutions of Guatemala and Honduras are extremely vague about the impeachment procedure.
They both empower congress to press charges against the executive, but there is no explicit provision for
the suspension or ousting of the chief executive on grounds of impeachment.
2

Despite bicameralism, the Bolivian constitutions of 1967 and 1994, and the Venezuelan
constitution of 1961 also relied on the judicial modelVenezuela preserved this scheme when it
moved to unicameralism in 1999. If the Venezuelan president is accused of a crime, the Supreme
Court has to rule on the validity of the chargeswhat Venezuelan constitutional law defines as a
pre-trial of merit (antejuicio de mrito). After the charges are declared legitimate, it is up to the
National Assembly (the Senate in the 1961 model) to authorize the trial by simple majority.3 The
Supreme Court is in charge of the trial itself. In Bolivia, a joint session of both chambers has to
authorize the trial, which is conducted by the Supreme Court.
The Ecuadorian constitutions of 1979 and 1998, and the Peruvian chart of 1992, presented
the opposite pattern. Despite unicameralism, they adhered to the congressional model. The 1979
Constitution established that the Ecuadorian congress was in charge of both, the accusations and
the trial. Section Five of the Organic Law of the Legislative Function clarified the procedure:
congress had to authorize the accusation by simple majority and vote the impeachment with twothirds of its members. In 1998, the two-thirds clause was clarified in the constitutional text (art.
130).
Some countries have adopted a dual scheme. The Brazilian constitution combines
elements of the bicameral tradition and the judicial tradition by distinguishing between
accountability crimes (crimes de responsabilidade) and common crimes.4 In both cases, the
Chamber of Deputies is in charge of the accusation, but accountability crimes are judged by the
Senate while all other crimes are tried by the Federal Supreme Court. Similarly, the Colombian
constitutions of 1886 and 1991 specified that the Chamber of Representatives issues the accusation
and the Senate allows the trial by suspending the president from office. In the case of common
crimes, the Senate directs the trial to the Supreme Court, but in case of failures to perform public
duties it also plays the role of the jury. The Ecuadorian constitutions of 1946 and 1967 established
a similar principlealthough common crimes were to be judged by an ordinary court.
A second way in which the president can be ousted from office is through a declaration of
incapacity. Originally, this rule was conceived to replace a chief executive who was alive but
unable to perform his or her duties. The term incapacity, however, may gain unexpected
meanings in the midst of a presidential crisis. In 1955, the Brazilian congress used the incapacity
clause (art. 791 of the 1946 Constitution) to legalize the military ousting of President Luz.
Technically speaking, congress did not declare Luz incapable to rule but acknowledged a de
facto situationLuz was hiding in a gunboat, under fire, at the Guanabara Bay (Dulles 1970: 47;
Diario do Congresso Nacional, Seo I, November 11, 1955: 8372-82). The most interesting
example of this sort, discussed in detail below, is the ousting of Ecuadorian President Abdal
Bucaram on charges of insanity in February of 1997.
Political manipulation of the incapacity clause becomes more difficult when the rule is
highly restrictive. For example, the Chilean constitution of 1980 introduced a complex procedure
to declare presidential incapacity (arts. 49 and 82). At least one fourth of the Chamber of Deputies
must ask the Supreme Court to consider the problem, and the Court must issue a report to the
Senate before the latter decidesby simple majorityon the question. In practice, the Chilean
3

Under the 1961 Constitution (which ruled the Prez impeachment) the lower chamber played no role in
the process. The 1999 chart is unclear about the voting threshold. I am indebted to Naoko Kada for her
comments on this issue.
4

Article 85 defines as crimes de responsabilidade the actions of the president against the constitution
particularly those compromising the existence of the Union, the independence of the other branches or
local governments, political and civil rights, internal security, honesty in administration, the budget, and
the law or judicial decisions.
3

arrangement calls for an implicit agreement between the two chambers and the Supreme Court to
declare the incompetence of the president.
The constitutions of El Salvador (art. 131) and Guatemala (art. 165) allow the legislature
to declare the physical or mental incapacity of the president by a two-thirds majority and after a
committee of five physicians have reported on the issue. The Colombian chart allows the Senate to
declare the presidents permanent physical incapacity by simple majority, yet the term physical
implies some restrictions to this power and the text (art. 194), although not totally clear, apparently
assumes that the president has already taken a leave of absence. In Ecuador, the constitutions of
1946 and 1967 demanded that the two chambers in joint session decide on the incapacity issue
the 1967 chart also mentioned indignitybut this check disappeared with the return to
unicameralism in 1979.
2.

A Basic Model of Legislative Impeachment

Despite this diversity in constitutional arrangements, the congressional politics of

impeachment typically hinges on a common set of relevant factors. This section presents a stylized
model of legislative political trial in order to cast light on the main institutional determinants of the
impeachment process.
Let us consider, for the sake of simplicity, a unicameral, presidential regime in which
congress is the only actor deciding on impeachment charges (e.g., Ecuador, Panama). P denotes
the share of the chamber that is loyal to the president, v is the proportion of seats required to
prevent an impeachment, and t refers to the seats that the chief executive would need to keep
control of the government under a (counterfactual) parliamentary system. It is assumed that
congress has found a legal reason (or excuse), s, to question the authority (or capacity) of the
president. Typically, impeachment on grounds of s demands a qualified majority (so, for instance
v=1/3), while a parliamentary vote of censure may be sustained by simple majority (t=1/2).
Intuitively, v can be seen as the frontier of a risk area a necessary share of the legislative space
that the president must control if he or she wants to ensure protection from impeachment.
We can imagine three possible scenarios. In the first one, P<v<t, that is, the president is
exposed, and any serious confrontation with the opposition in congress may lead to his or her
ousting. The second scenario is the one in which v<P<t, this is a safe minority position in which
the president is, so to speak, shielded despite the eventual veracity of s. He or she would be
removed from office under parliamentary rules, but remains in office by grace of the fixed-term
principle (see Linz 1994, Shugart and Mainwaring 1997). Finally, we must consider a situation in
which v<t<P, that is, the president enjoys a dominant majority in congress. Figure 1 below
illustrates the three ideal-types. Each segment represents the legislature as a whole, and fixed
points v and t denote the amount of support required to prevent impeachment or a hypothetical vote
of no-confidence.
Figure 1 here
In the following pages I discuss the institutional factors that shape two critical parameters:
v (which is constitutionally fixed) and P (which is basically determined by the party system and the
dynamics of coalition formation). Parameter t is a hypothetical threshold, and I ignore this
component through most of the empirical discussion. This is, however, an important element of the
model in order to analyze the consequences of presidentialism (as opposed to parliamentarism) for
democratic stability.

In order to illustrate how bicameralism potentially reduces the feasibility of impeachment,

let us consider a more elaborate version of this model. A typical bicameral arrangement calls for a
simple majority in the lower chamber to vote impeachment, plus a vote of more than 2/3 in the
senate to oust the president. Figure 2 below depicts a president who controls 50 percent of the
senate (S) and slightly over 40 percent of the lower chamber (D). With just one chamber
participating in the process, the risk area would equal .50 of the legislative space in the case of
the chamber of deputies, or .33 in the case of the senate. With two chambers, however, the
president has greater chances to stop the impeachment process and his or her safety improves
significantly. In this example, the executive fails to be shielded in the lower chamber, but builds a
stronghold in the senate. The risk area under this typical bicameral arrangement falls to v=.17 (or
.50 x .33), as the gray section in Figure 2 illustrates.
Figure 2 here
In the case of the judicial model, the Supreme Court can be seen for analytical purposes as
a chamber (a collective body) participating in the process, and thus treated as just one of the
axes in Figure 2. To my knowledge, no constitution, with the exception of South Koreas (Kada
forthcoming), demands special majorities for the judicial decision on impeachment, therefore
vc=.50 in most cases. If several veto points participate in the process (e.g., several courts, like in
El Salvador), the formula for v will be v =
vi , where vi is the constitutional threshold for the

i-th veto point. Although this paper does not deal with the role of the courts as veto-points, an
extensive analysis of this problem can be found in Kada (forthcoming).
This model suggests that two elements of the constitutional scheme are crucial from the
perspective of congress: the thresholds, or majorities required to push impeachment, and the
number of veto points involved in the process. Constitutional restrictions presumably have not just
mechanical effects, but also strategic effects. When legislators perceive the formation of an
impeachment coalition as very unlikely, or when the impeachment process is outside their
institutional control, they may be less prone to take risks and join their peers against the president.
If, on the other hand, they anticipate success, they may jump into the impeachment coalition. In
this sense, I suspect that constitutional provisions shape not only the probability of a successful
impeachment, but also the probability of the emergence of a congress-led crisis.
3.

Constitutional Rules: Thresholds and Veto Points

On the basis of the previous discussion, impeachment provisions can be classified

according to two criteria: the actors involved in the impeachment process and the majorities
required to oust the president. The request for special majorities reduces the risk area for the
president. If the constitution involves several actors in the process the president is potentially safer
because there are more veto points to stop any challenge. Each additional actor involved in the
impeachment process represents a possible source of protection for the status-quo.
Legislative thresholds. Other things equal, we should expect that the lower the
requirements to impeach the president, the easier forming the impeachment coalition will be. For
instance, in those cases in which the constitution allows impeachment with just a simple majority of
the legislature (as in Venezuela), the president is more exposed than in others where the
constitution requests special majorities. The idea of requesting a supermajority in order to oust the
president was an invention of the American framers, who, according to Gerhardt (1996: 10) sought
to ensure that the Senate would be as thoughtful and deliberate in its consideration of such matters

as the House of Lords had been in the British context. This principle reinforced the practical
differences between the presidential impeachment process and the vote of non-confidence in
parliamentary regimes, for typically v<t. From the American constitution, the provision of special
majorities spread to most presidential systems.
The case of Abdal Bucaram in Ecuador illustrates better than any other the relevance of
the impeachment threshold. Bucarams party, the PRE (Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano)
controlled 19 seats (23%) in the unicameral legislature. In the critical session of February 6, 1997,
the president received additional support from fifteen other deputies, reaching control of 41 percent
of the chamber. These 34 legislators would have been enough to bloc a normal impeachment
procedure, since the law regulating the legislative activity demanded a majority of two thirds (55
out of 82 deputies) to pass a vote of censure against the president (art. 103 of the Ley Orgnica de
la Funcin Legislativa). There were, however, no special requirements for the declaration of
mental incapacity. By invoking article 100(d) of the constitution, the opposition circumvented the
need for a supermajority and increased the veto threshold from v=.33 to v=.50. Notably, the text
of the motion offered no argument related to the presidents mental health. It rather presented the
shameful and illegal behavior of the president as a reason for the ousting (Congreso Nacional
del Ecuador. Acta No. 1, Sesin Vespertina de Congreso Extraordinario. February 6, 1997: 22).
Veto points. In any democracy, there are actors or institutions with capacity to block
major collective decisions. George Tsebelis labeled them as veto players: A veto player is an
individual or collective actor whose agreement is required for a policy decision. (Tsebelis 1995:
293). Immergut (1992: 27) defined veto points as points of strategic uncertainty where decisions
may be overturned (see also Kaiser 1997). An important literature has dealt with the problem of
veto points (and players) in policymaking (e.g., Immergut 1992, Crepaz 1998, Birchfield and
Crepaz 1998, Hallerberg and Basinger 1998, Castles 1999, Kay 1999, Tsebelis 1999). Kada
(forthcoming) similarly explores the role of veto gates in the impeachment process.
I have shown above that the number of veto points potentially makes a difference for the
resolution of constitutional crises, but I will not emphasize this explanation here for two reasons.
First, there was not enormous variance in the number of constitutional veto points for impeachment
across cases. Most presidential regimes have established a two-stage processtypically, one
chamber initiates the trial and the other one (or the Supreme Court) makes the decision. Of the
crises studied here, only 1997 Ecuador departed from this pattern by having a unicameral
impeachment procedure.5
Second, even if the number of veto players increases, incongruence among them (Tsebelis
1995: 308-11) may not. Historical evidence suggests that veto points are not fully independent of
each other, not only for political reasons (e.g., the same party controls both chambers), but also for
strategic ones. Success of the impeachment drive at the first point tends to increase the probability
of success at later stages, particularly when there is mounting public outrage against the president.
This was the case with Fernando Collor and Ral Cubas Grau, both of whom resigned in
anticipation of a defeat in the Senate. Veto players had a more effective role during the Clinton
case, in which the Senate stopped the impeachment process initiated by the House in 1999, and in
the 1991 Peruvian Crisis, when the lower chamber blocked a declaration of incapacity against
Fujimori approved by the Senate.

There are, of course, other institutions (like congressional committees or courts) which may serve to
prevent an impeachment. I shall not deal with them here because Kada (forthcoming) provides an
extensive account of this issue. Her work shows how such veto gates should be taken into account to
understand the subtleties of any impeachment process.
6

In Venezuela, after the Supreme Court accepted the accusation against Carlos Andrs
Prez, it was easier and less costly for legislators to suspend the president from office. Senators in
the opposition argued that, once the Court had voted in favor of a trial, the Senate should authorize
the process to preserve Congress own prestige. Members of the presidents party claimed that,
even if they supported Carlos Andrs Prez, they could not obstruct the workings of the Judiciary.
In this context, all senators voted against the chief executive. Urging the vote, Senator
Pedro Pablo Aguilar, asserted: we must effect an [already] announced act. We had all said that, if
the Supreme Court found reasons to declare the trial germane, here, in the Senate, our hands would
be raised to authorize the Court to prosecute Carlos Andrs Prez on criminal grounds under
charges of enrichment and maladministration. (Diario de Debates del Senado, Friday, May 21,
1993: 714).
4.

Determinants of Congressional Support

The stylized model outlined in previous sections suggests that constitutional provisions do
not determine impeachment by themselves, but acting in interaction with the extension and intensity
of partisan support for the executive. This section claims that majority runoff elections tend to
weaken the presidents position by creating a powerless legislative bloc and, paradoxically, a false
sense of presidential dominance. It also argues that both, the size and the loyalty of the presidents
party are important factors to protect the president once the crisis has erupted.
A note on majority runoff elections. Shortly after the ousting of President Bucaram,
Simn Pachano (1997) identified the Ecuadorian majority runoff electoral system as a potential
source of presidential crises. According to Pachano, Ecuadorian voters use the second round to
choose the lesser evili.e., they vote against the loser, instead of for the winner. In a country
like Ecuador, with relatively weak parties and high electoral volatility, the runoff election is
noxious for the political system. Runoff elections work to create a negative consensus [around a
candidate] (interview, November 1999). This fact is aggravated by the inability of parties to
control their own electorate, which makes electoral coalitions for the second round unreliable. As
a result, the winning candidate comes to power with no commitments. There is no political
agreement to govern with other sectors who might balance the government.
I suspect that this argument can be easily extended to other cases. The risk of a
presidential crisis is extreme in cases of outcome inversion, when the winner of the first round
(who would be the elected president under a plurality system) is defeated in the second round. By
creating an artificial majority, runoff elections potentially encourage a false sense of public
support for the executive and breed the conditions for executive-legislative conflict. The inversion
of the initial outcome almost guarantees that the largest party in congress will not be the
presidents, makes legislative coalitions less likely, and weakens the initial legitimacy of the elected
candidatewho has lost the first round.
Indeed, Bucarams victory is one of the few known examples of outcome inversion. As
explained by Pachano, the presidents majority was more of a negative coalition against the
Social Christian candidate who had prevailed in the first round. Bucarams party obtained less
that one-fourth of the seats in the legislature and was unable to form a stable coalition. The
presidents popularity fell from 55 percent in August 1996, to 8 percent in February of 1997
(according to Market polls). In justifying the ousting of Bucaram, an observer of the crisis later
claimed that: It is true that Bucaram won the presidency with slightly more than two million votes.
But it is also true that an equal number of voters was against him, directly or indirectly.
(Ribadeneira 1997: 42).

A similar situation had taken place in Ecuador in 1984, when Rodrigo Borja narrowly
defeated Len Febres Cordero in the first round (28.7 to 27.2%), but Febres ultimately became
president. Febres Cordero developed a very conflictive relationship with congress, and was almost
impeached after the Taurazo (when he vetoed an amnesty law and was kidnapped by military
officers) in 1987. The other cases of outcome inversion in Latin America are the elections of
presidents Fujimori of Per in 1990, Serrano of Guatemala in 1991, and Fernndez of the
Dominican Republic in 1996. Fujimori and Serrano confronted threats of impeachment by
launching self-coups (although Serrano ultimately failed and was ousted). In the Dominican
Republic, Jos Pea Gmez won the first round of the 1996 election with 45.9% of the vote against
Leonel Fernndez (38.9%). Balaguers Partido Reformista (PRSC) supported Fernndez in the
second round, and he obtained 51.2 percent of the vote. His party, the Partido de Liberacin
Dominicana (PLD), only won 11 percent of the seats in the lower chamber but the members of the
Frente Nacional Patritico (PLD and PRSC) controlled together 52 percent of the seats. This is
the only case of outcome inversion that has not bred a presidential crisis.
The case of Fernando Collor was slightly different because there was no outcome
inversionCollor won against Lula da Silva in the first and in the second rounds. Moreover,
Collor took office in March of 1990 with a congress elected in 1986legislative elections did not
take place until October that year. As in the case of Bucaram, however, the electoral system gave
the president a misleading sense of support from an intense majority. The high popularity rates
characteristic of the honeymoon period (71 percent for Collor, 55 percent for Bucaram)
reinforced this perception. In this context, and particularly when they win the election campaigning
against traditional elites, presidents are less willing to negotiate with congress or with social leaders
at a time when they are in the best position to do so. I shall discuss Collor and Bucarams failures
to build a coalition in the following section.
Partisan Powers. Presidential crises may easily derive in impeachment when presidents
cannot control the legislature. Partisan powers (Mainwaring and Shugart 1997) are basically
determined by the size of the presidents party in congress and the loyalty of those legislators to the
chief executive. Therefore, impeachment is more likely when a) the presidents party is too small
to block the procedures; or b) the party turns its back to the president.
Carlos Andrs Prez and Ral Cubas Grau represent the latter case. Although their
parties could have vetoed the impeachment process, they decided to play the legislative game
against the president. In the case of Carlos Andrs Prez, this outcome was the result of Prezs
incapacity to control the party machine, his reluctance to compromise with party leaders, and his
decline in popularity after 1992. In his study of Accin Democrticas factionalism, Michael
Coppedge noted that
Prez won the 1988 election, preserving ADs status as the governing party. But the party
quickly became deeply divided () into a faction of Ortodoxos commanded by general
secretary Luis Alfaro Ucero and aligned with former President Lusinchi, and a faction of
Renovadores led by Alonso Lpez and aligned with incumbent President Prez
(Coppedge 1994b:103).
The Lusinchistas won 56 percent of the vote in the 1991 internal elections and used this
strength to gain control of the powerful National Executive Committee (CEN, in the Spanish
acronym) at the National Convention. Prez had learned early during the presidential campaign in
1988 that orthodox party leaders opposed his economic reform program (interview with Carlos
Andrs Prez, July 10, 1998). In response, he appointed independent technocrats in key economic

posts, and followed a party-neglecting strategy in the implementation of public policy (Corrales
2000).
According to Corrales (1997: 97), AD responded to Prezs party-neglecting strategy in
two ways. First, they began to act as a virtual opposition force. Second, they relaxed the
traditional party discipline in congress, allowing dissidents to defy the government. After Chavezs
coup attempt in February of 1992, the orthodox opposition within the party became stronger.
ADs president, Humberto Celli, publicly called for a cabinet reshuffle and stated that the
departure of the powerful Minister of Planning, Miguel Rodrgez, was a point of honor for the
party. Deputy Ral Matos Azcar (Minister of Planning during the Lusinchi administration)
favored the shortening of Prezs mandate to four years and encouraged the censure of the key
ministers in charge of the economyMiguel Rodrguez, Ricardo Haussman, and Pedro Rosas.
The presidents situation worsened with popularity rates hitting a floor around 20% after
the second quarter of 1992.6 Prez refused to resign or shorten his mandate. Influenced by the
Brazilian experience, the opposition began to explore accusations of corruption in late 1992. With
limited public support, a mounting scandal, and his own party increasingly aligned with the
opposition, Prez found himself unable to control the Senate vote on impeachment on May 21,
1993. Not without a kernel of irony, former President Ramn J. Velsquez recalls the party
position: Let the judges examine his behavior. The Party wants nothing to do with any
misdemeanor. (Interview, July 14, 1998).
The experience of Abdal Bucaram represents the opposite case. Prior to the
constitutional reform of 1998, the laws regulating the legislative activity in Ecuador were
particularly lenient with party defection and deputies used to disaffiliate from their parties or
simply voted against their leaders (see Meja Acosta 1999). But, in contrast to the Collor case,
members of the Roldosista Party remained loyal to Bucaram during the crisis and defected
massively only after he went into exile (interview with Marco Proao Maya, November 1999).
Because the constitutionality of the vote was dubious and the outcome of the crisis was rather
uncertain, PRE legislators were reluctant to abandon the boat while Bucaram was still in office.
However, the Roldosistas controlled just 23 percent of the seats (with additional support
from a few Conservative, CFP, and Alfarista deputies). This delegation might have blocked the
formation of a two third majority, but it was unable to prevent the simple majority vote demanded
for the declaration of incapacity. Bucarams weakness thus originated in the small size of his party
rather than in the betrayal of his followers.
After the new administration had taken over, however, most of the 19 deputies decided to
disaffiliate and negotiate with the interim president. According to Burbano de Lara and Rowland
(1997: 36), The acute political crisis created by the demonstrations of February 5, and the
deposition of President Bucaram, had a demolishing effect on the ruling party, the PRE. One year
after winning the presidential election, the PRE had lost 12 deputies.

Data from Consultores 21. Prez never recovered popularity until his ousting.
9

5.

The Timing of Coalition-Building

When presidents lack a strong partisan force in congress, the formation of a broader
coalition emerges as the only way to prevent an impeachment process. But stable coalitions are not
forged overnight: a critical lesson of the 1990s is that presidents should nurture their legislative
coalitions from their first day in office. Otherwise, the executive may be too isolated by the time
the accusations reach the floor. Political isolation is hard to revert once scandals have gained
momentum, presidential popularity is low, and powerful elites are hurt.
Brazil, 1990-92. The Collor administration is an interesting example of this problem.
Fernando Collor won the 1989 election campaigning against traditional parties and elites. Early in
his term, Collor pushed his economic reform package (the Plano Collor I) through congress with
support of a right-wing coalition which included the PFL, the PTB, the PDS, the ruling PRN, and
some dissident members of the PMDB (Figueiredo and Limongi 1999). The administration refused
to grant any concessions or political appointments to its legislative allies until the medidas
provisorias (temporary decrees) were approved by congress. The weekly Veja discussed this
legislative strategy with surprise:
In contrast to what we used to see in times of Jos Sarney, () Collor managed to gain
parliamentary support without giving anything in exchange. He did not even compromise
on important items of the plan as an instrument of negotiation. It was a victory without
the it is in giving that we receive, without the market style in place during the Sarney
administration (Veja, April 18, 1990: 23).7
Willing to prove his independence from traditional parties, Collor vetoed congressional
amendments to the planeven those negotiated by the PRN leadership. Then, the president
delayed the appointment of some officials proposed by his congressional allies until congress
swallowed the vetoes. By then, the largest party in congress, the centrist PMDB, was clearly in the
opposition, and members of the PFL (the largest ally on the right) began to complain about
Collors lack of flexibility. According to Ricardo Fiuza, leader of the PFL in congress, legislators
accepted such violent economic measures because of Collors popularity. What is congress
anywhere in the world? Congress decides nothing, it is just a resounding board for the nation.
(interview, October 1999).
In the following months, legislative allies were repeatedly denied access to pork and
patronage, or simply ignored or mistreated by ministers and government officials. In late May,
1990, with inflation coming back and presidential approval rates falling to 45 percent (according to
an IBOPE poll), congress began to rebel. The right-wing coalition passively allowed the defeat of
a critical medida provisoria aimed to block the adjustment of salaries by labor courts. Within a
month, indexation was widely expected throughout the economy, and inflation bounced back to a
monthly 12 percent.
The new test for the administration was the congressional election of October, 1990 when
the formation of a legislative majority was at stake. The president, however, kept distance from the
electoral process and most legislators of the right felt they owed nothing to the administration. The
appointment of a new Minister of Justice, Jarbas Passarinho, suggested greater inclination to
7

The Brazilian press usually refers to the Franciscan politics (it is in giving that we receive), a
sarcastic allusion to pork barrel. Apparently, the irony was coined by Sarneys Minister of Industry and
Commerce, Roberto Cardoso Alves.
10

negotiate with the legislative branch, but the press soon reported that Passarinho had complained to
the president: I am a general without troops, and congress looks like troops without a general
(Veja, November 21, 1990: 39).
According to deputy Luiz Moreira (PTB-BA), one of the presidents allies in congress,
Collor adopted a rather authoritarian attitude. And besides that, creating antipathy among
legislators, he made very difficult to get access to him. He isolated himself and did not keep an
open dialog with congress. (interview, October 1999). Z Gomes, a loyal congressman of the
ruling PRN, also noted the need of a more professional relationship with congress during those
years (interview, October 1999).
The last Chief of Staff of the Collor administraion, Ricardo Fiuzaa PFL leader
appointed minister in 1992 to articulate the congressional frontreportedly said to Press Secretary
Claudio Humberto Rosa e Silva that: forging a majority in the Chamber is the easiest thing in the
word, Claudinho. It is just getting a list of the deputies and check, one by one, their political
needs. I can do that in a week and the President will have a majority. But I need his
authorization. (Rosa e Silva 1993: 83-84). In late 1991, Fiuza had already complained to the
press secretary that the government was not giving enough attention to its allies:
Listen, son: I am the leader of the government [coalition in congress], isnt it? Well, I sent
Mrs. Rosane [the First Lady] a candidate proposal offered by one of my mayors from the
state of Pernambuco for the head position of the LBA [the social policy institution] in his
city. She, not only ignored my suggestion, but also appointed another person who had
opposed the President during the campaign. The mayor can think only two things: either
this deputy he has been supporting for 20 years is a moron (bunda-mole) with no prestige
in the government whatsoever, or he made no effort to push his candidate. Whatever he
thinks, I am on the losing side. If that has happened to me, just imagine what is going on.
(Rosa e Silva 1993: 84).
By the time the impeachment process sparked in congress, the presidential coalition was in
shambles. Fiuza knew it was too late to form an anti-impeachment majority: With the
accusations against the president [rolling], with the left in the opposition, with an adversarial
congress because Collor had not taken care of the deputies, without [elite] support or any
governability pact Collor was not impeached, he was not judged, he was lynched, explains his
former chief of staff.8 Another congressman who voted against the impeachment remembers
a fact that clearly exemplifies what happened. () By the time of impeachment,
President Collor began to telephone legislators requesting their support. One deputy from
Paran got the call and imagined it was a joke. He kept the conversation for a while and
by the end of the talk he realized that, indeed, it was the president. Then he simply said:
Mr. President, how many times I attempted to talk to you, and you never gave me an
appointment. It is not now that I will take care of your request simply because you gave
me a call And he voted against [Collor]. This shows the kind of dissatisfaction that he
had created among his legislative base (Interview with Luiz Moreira, October 14, 1999).
Ecuador, 1996-97. The Ecuadorian case presents a more dramatic experience. The
administration failed to build a coalition even during the first months in office. In a highly
fragmented legislative environmentin which the average party controlled just nine percent of the
8

Interview Ricardo Fiuza. Braslia, October 19, 1999.

11

seatsthe formation of a comprehensive coalition appeared to be the only way to rule. Lacking
the muscle to impose their own candidate, the Roldosistas backed Fabin Alarcn (leader of the
FRA and an electoral ally of the PRE) as president of congress. The Izquierda Democrtica (ID),
the Democracia Popular (DP), and other small groups also negotiated with Alarcn to secure their
presence in the permanent committeeswhich kept congress working during most of the year.9
The largest congressional party, the Partido Social Cristiano (PSC), and the left (MPD,
Pachacutik) remained in the opposition.
The agreement with the ID and the DP would not survive the election of Alarcn. The
administration insisted in appointing Fernando Rosero (a PRE politician) as contralor general
(comptroller general). Leaders of the ID, DP, and PSC, complained that the candidate was too
close to the government to become an independent watchdog. The administration refused to
replace the nominee, and instead sought to break party discipline among the opposition ranks.10
After two failed attempts (in August 20 and 21) the motion passed on August 22, 1996, by 38-5,
while 37 deputies abstained in a vain attempt to prevent the necessary quorum. In late October, the
PRE reached a new agreement with the powerful Partido Social Cristiano (PSC) to renew some 12
Supreme Court judges. But PSC leader Heinz Moeller made clear that the party would remain in
the opposition and would demand the resignation of Education Minister Sandra Correaby then
accused of plagiarizing her doctoral dissertation. President Bucaram responded that PSC leaders
were wasting their time (El Comercio October 25, 1996: A2).
By late Novemberwhen the first 100 days of truce with the government were over
most legislators were overtly moving to the opposition camp. Bucaram had offended ID partisans
by calling their leader, former President Rodrigo Borja, a donkey. He had accused Alexandra
Vela, a key DP representative, of obstructing justice in the investigation of the assassination of
President RoldsVela responded with a libel suit against the president.11 The administration
aroused the anger of the Pachacutik leaders by creating an Ethnic Ministrybreaking a previous
deal with the indigenous movement, which saw the Ministry as a source of internal division. In the
end, the accusations against Education Minister Sandra Correa, and the resistance of the
administration to accept her impeachment, allowed all opposition forces to rally around a common
issue. In the meantime, a congressional sub-committee began to investigate the abuses of Minister
of Energy Alfredo Adumaccused of harassing employees and union leaders in the public oil
company (Acosta Cern 1997).
In contrast to Collor, Bucaram waited more than three months to push his economic
package through congress. The announcement of the economic adjustment plan in early December
(which included new taxes, elimination of subsidies, and an increase in telephone rates and prices
of domestic gas) provided the ultimate catalyst for opposition forces to unite. According to Elsa
9

Votes to appoint Alarcn (August 1st, 1996) were distributed as follows: PRE 18, DP 11, ID 4, FRA 2,
LP 2, PCE 2, others 5 (see Burbano de Lara and Rowland 1998: 82).
10

Opposition deputies who voted in favor of Rosero explained to the press that the administration had
promised investments for their districts (El Comercio, August 23, 1996). Later on, legislators complained
about the action of a man with a briefcase supposedly in charge of buying votes for the administration
(Saltos 1997: 124). Paco Moncayoby the time head of the military Joint Command, and later an ID
legislatornoted that the practice of buying votes was widely practiced by the opposition too (interview,
November 1999).
11

President Jaime Rolds (and First Lady Marta Bucaram, Abdals sister) died in a plane crash in May
of 1981. The Bucaram family claims that it was sabotage (interview with Elsa Bucaram, November 17,
1999). Deputy Alexandra Vela considered that challenging the president in court would be a powerful
signal to many people who feared the abuses of the Bucarams (interview with A. Vela, December 1999).
12

Bucaram, a PRE leader and sister of the president, opposition to the reform was a pretext to effect
the conspiracy. (Interview, November 1999). The PSC, supposedly close to the program on
ideological grounds, declined to negotiate the economic reform with the administration. President
Bucaram announced that he would break party discipline to get his program approved, and warned
congress that we are going to modernize the country, or we are going to war. (El Comercio
November 16, 1996: A2).
War, it would be. The five opposition parties (PSC, ID, DP, MPD and Pachacutik) united
to block the tax reform, forcing the administration to submit three different bills until the approval
of a crippled version on December 27. It was a bad start, considering that the president needed
some 70 measures and constitutional amendments passed to implement all the economic and
political reforms related to his program (El Comercio, December 8, 1996: A6). In mid-January,
opposition legislators began to speculate with an impeachment against Bucaram (Ribadeneira et al.
1997: 30). Izquierda Democrtica congressman Ral Baca recalls that the original plan was not
the declaration of incapacity, but a regular impeachment process on charges of offenses to
national honor (a constitutional charge). The opposition assumed that it was impossible to reach
the two-thirds majority, but an impeachment process would be a strong signal to warn Bucaram
against his confrontation with congress (interview, November 8, 1999).
Although in mid-December powerful political leaderslike former President Len Febres
Corderostill felt that the situation was not mature for an impeachment process (Saltos 1997:
123), the mobilization against the president organized by the energy unions and the social
movements accelerated the process. The demonstrations of February 5 signaled the opposition that
they had public support to oust the president, and the use of article 100 (a declaration of incapacity
by simple majority) emerged as a viable course of action. Unions and social movements, feeling
this was a one-shot chance to stop the convertibility program, presented congress with a
Mandate to depose Bucaram (Narvez 1997: 77-82).
At this point, the Roldosistas began to sense the strategic mistake of not appointing a PRE
member as head of the congress (interview with Marco Proao Maya, November 1999). Since
November, Fabin Alarcnwell known for his political intuitionhad began to align with the
opposition. The president of congress called for an extraordinary session on February 6, allowing
the motion of incapacity against Bucaram to reach the floor. In exchange, Alarcn became interim
president himself.12 To prevent a sequence of voteswhich could encourage the defection of
members of the coalition at some pointthe opposition leaders integrated all agreements in a single
document. The motion presented by Franklin Verduga Vlez is the legislative equivalent of a
patchworknoted an observer. A careful reader can identify the origin of each and every
demand it contains. (Saad Herrera 1997: 93). The declaration passed on February 6 not only
proclaimed President Bucaram mentally incapable to rule but also appointed Alarcn as interim
president and demanded from the new administration (following the Mandate) a strong
rectification of Bucarams economic policy.13
12

According to Ral Baca (ID) only two candidates to replace Bucaram had some constitutional
legitimacy: Vice-president Rosala Arteaga and the President of Congress, Fabin Alarcn. The
constitutional reform of 1995 had left the issue of succession without clarification, and Arteaga, the
natural candidate was widely opposed among the opposition legislatorsapparently because she
granted no regime change. Alarcn faced strong opposition too, but he was the only candidate who
could claim a legitimate right to take office if Bucaram was deposed (interview, November 1999).
13

In later days, following an agreement with the military, congress had to unpack the declaration
postponing the appointment of Alarcn and allowing Vice-President Arteaga to take office for a few days,
in order to preserve the constitutionality of the succession.
13

6.

Assessing the Legislative Shield

The model outlined in this paper suggests that constitutional rules do not operate in a
vacuum. The analysis of thresholds or veto points is of little use unless we collect further
information on the nature of the political actorsparties, factions, and leadersoperating under
such constraints. Historical evidence shows that presidents who were ousted by congress in the
1990s lacked a legislative shield either because a) they had a small party and were incapable of
building a legislative coalition, or b) they were members of a strong party controlled by an
adversarial faction. Both situations created instances in which P<v, according to the model.
Table 1 below illustrates this conclusion. Carlos Andrs Prez belonged to a strong party
which had ceased to support the president. Accin Democrtica controlled 45 percent of the
Senate, but no senator opposed the trial. Abdal Bucaram lead a small, (and still) cohesive party,
but no coalition was willing to sustain him in power. Almost every deputy elected in the PRE slate
opposed impeachment, but the Roldosistas and their allies failed to achieve a majority. The case of
Collor shows a lethal combination of a small legislative party defecting on the executive and a
coalition in shambles. Less than one-third of the PRN legislators voted against impeachment, and
only 12 percent of the deputies supported the chief executive.
Table 1 here
To the extent that the electoral system promotes the formation of governments with weak
partisan powers, it encourages the emergence of presidential crises and facilitates their resolution
through impeachment. I have argued that outcome inversion in majority runoff systems is
particularly dangerous not only because it tends to deprive the president of a stronghold in
congress, but also because it generates a false image of public support for the executive. This
misleading sense of majority discourages the formation of multiparty coalitions at an early stage,
when the president still has capacity to negotiate, hindering the emergence of a legislative shield
later, when scandal and public outrage have eroded the presidents authority.

14

TABLES AND FIGURES

Exposed
P

Shielded
v

Dominant
v

Figure 1. Position of the President According to Congressional Support

Ps

P
v

vs

Pd

vd

Figure 2. Position of the President in a Bi-Cameral Impeachment Process

15

TABLE 1
INSTITUTIONAL STRENGTH OF THE PRESIDENT
IN THREE IMPEACHMENT CRISES
President

Vote in

Date

vi

(ni)

Size of
Party

Support for
president
within
Overall
party

Strength
(Pv)

Collor

Deputies

9-29-92

.33

(166)

.06*

.28

.12

.21

Prez

Senate

5-21-93

.50

(26)

.45

.00

.00

.50

Bucaram

Congress

2-6-97

.50

(42)

.23

.95

.46

.04

* Figure for PRN alone. If we add the PFL forces, the value is .23 (Support=.27).

16

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18