Ecuador lawmakers flee to Colombia, say persecuted

Bogota, Apr 25 (Reuters) A group of 15 Ecuadorean opposition lawmakers, fearing persecution from President Rafael Correa's government, has fled to Colombia to seek protection and possible asylum, one of the legislators said today.

The congress members left Ecuador after a prosecutor ordered them investigated for threatening national security following their clash with Correa over his plans to rewrite the constitution, lawmaker Gloria Gallardo told Reuters in Bogota.

A judge must decide whether to approve the arrest order for the lawmakers, Gallardo said, but she branded the investigation politically motivated and said the legislators would seek asylum if the magistrate ordered their detention.

''There are no guarantees for due process in our country,'' she said by telephone from a Bogota hotel. ''If the judge opens a penal process and the arrest warrant goes ahead, then undoubtedly we will have to seek asylum.'' A Colombian Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to comment.

A representative from the Ecuadorean Embassy in Bogota was not available.

Correa had threatened to arrest the lawmakers if they disrupted order, but later softened his tone to call the arrest petition ''untimely.'' Ecuador is caught up in institutional turmoil after 57 opposition lawmakers were fired and replaced by pro-Correa substitutes last month for resisting the left-wing leader's proposal to curb the influence of traditional parties.

Constitutional court judges ruled to reinstate 50 lawmakers this week, only to be dismissed themselves by the new Congress in a decision that has fueled political tensions with Correa's 3-month-old government.

A US-trained economics professor, Correa is hugely popular for his challenge to political elites who many Ecuadoreans blame for the turmoil that has toppled three presidents in the last decade.

Ecuadoreans voted this month in a referendum to back Correa's plan for a special assembly to rewrite the constitution. But his critics fear the former economics minister will use his mandate to shore up presidential powers and undermine democracy.

Reuters RS GC2056