For many years Ecuador has been high on every corruption ranking. On the listing of World Audit it is currently listed 113 together with countries like Libya, Uganda and Bolivia. On a scale from 1 to 10 Ecuador receives a 1.7 for transparency from the NGO Transparancy International, devoted to monitoring corruption across the globe.

Corruption has a great impact on what happens in a country. Ecuador has suffered in every single way, due to corruption. In Ecuador corruption has spread through all the layers of society, it is visible in the educational system, police, healthcare, banking and all other vital issues that impact everything and everybody in a country.

Even after being in Ecuador for just a few months, I can recognize many of the issues Ecuadoreans have to deal with. I believe it is necessary to share this information with people around the world. It affects us all, maybe not directly, but corruption in Ecuador touches us all. Over the next few weeks I will try to show you how corruption affects the life of the people in Ecuador and how you can make a difference.

Some things will never change, but is that really a good reason to stop caring? It seems like many Ecuadoreans believe the corruption inside their government will always be there. Can you really blame them?

Ecuador has had seven presidents in the last eight years. Several of these former presidents were taken out of their position, due to corruption charges. Charges varied from influencing the judiciary branch, to simply misusing government funds.

On April 20 2003, president Gutierrez was ousted by the Congress and the current president, Alfredo Palacio took over.

Breaking Ecuador's cycle of corruption and "refounding" the nation will be no easy task, least of all for an interim president with a term that lasts - in theory - only until January 2007 . Ecuador is a country whose democracy is so warped that those who are elected on the promise of change are those who keep the country stagnated in corruption, and those who use the masses to gain power are surprised when they are thrown out by popular demand. Alfredo Palacio's challenge is a huge one.

Corruption is a very current issue in Ecuador. In yesterday´s newspaper I read about the next scandal. Former president Gutiérrez, who was president in 2003, was the instigator to this problem. During his time as a president he was known as a dictator, obviously not too popular at the end of his presidency.

In November 2003, former president Gutiérrez narrowly escaped impeachment for the alleged misuse of government funds. In December he removed 27 of the 31 justices of the Supreme Court, claiming the judges had supported the impeachment attempt and were sympathetic to the opposition parties. He replaced them with judges who supported the government.

Eventually these new judges were fired and had to be replaced. A commission to ensure the legitimacy of this important replacement was put into place. Last Friday, 25th of November, the new judges were supposed to be presented. Unfortunately at the last moment, just before the presentation, the whole thing was blown off. The commission encountered a few insufficiencies in the procedure and were not able to assign the new judges.

Until this moment there hasn’t been an explanation for this cancellation. The commission stays vague on the issue and is not willing to discuss its reasons at this moment. Obviously this entire issue is based on the possibility of corruption, the thing that interrupts and slows down every procedure in Ecuador.