The former Ecuadorian president, Lucio Gutiérrez, on December 16, 2003 had two popular events at the Carondelet Palace in Quito, Ecuador. The first was a meeting with several Quito schools for the beginning of the Ninth of the Child God, in which they gave away bags of candy, something typical of Christmas, and the second act was to give a populist speech with a machete to address their supporters from the balcony of the Government Palace in Quito. In the second act there were 500 Ecuadorians to show their support for the beleaguered president who later ended up being overthrown by a social mobilization.