The leadership of Ecuador’s Olympic Committee (COE) has resigned en masse: along with president Danilo Carrera, eight other elected members of the COE have stepped down. Carrera has been the president of the Olympic committee for the past 16 years, and was reelected in Feb. 2010 to serve until 2014.

The mass defections will make way for a clean slate and an election at which candidates friendly with Ecuador’s ruling political party in the assembly, and President Rafael Correa, are expected to win the empty spots in the COE leadership.

Observers hope this will resolve the current crisis in Ecuadorian sport.

The crisis began in 2010, when a comprehensive set of laws regulating amateur and professional organized sports, physical education and recreation in Ecuador was passed by the national assembly. This set of rules is known collectively as the ‘Ley del Deporte’ (PDF).

Ecuador’s Olympic committee, the COE, rejected many of the regulations established by the new laws, preferring to operate as they always had. As the international entity representing more than 40 sports federations (everything from Ecuador’s professional football league the FEF, to the chess federation), the COE has tremendous power.

Ecuador’s political leadership, however, remained steadfast with their reforms, and established a mirror body that would conduct themselves according to the new rules. Sports federations that wanted government support, thus, had to defect from the COE and reorganize under the Ministry-approved sports body. The COE sustained that this was a government-backed challenge to the autonomy of the sports federations.

The new Ministry-created body was not recognized internationally. Ecuadorian athletes had trouble negotiating their participation in competitions, even during the most recent Olympic games in London, if they were not affiliated with the COE.

On May 4, an Ecuadorian team of 17 weightlifters was prevented from competing at an International Weightlifting Federation World Juniors competition in Peru. The president of the Ecuadorian weightlifting federation said the COE intervened internationally so that his team would be excluded from the competition.

This incident precipitated warnings to the COE from Ecuador’s political leadership, and yesterday Carrera made a public declaration of his resignation, citing the political pressure his organization has received.

A date for the election to replace the COE leadership has not been set yet.