President Guillermo Lasso, on the brink of impeachment in Ecuador

The last 30 days have been one of the most complicated for the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, of his 21-month mandate, as he has gone from defeating the referendum promoted by his government to finding himself on the verge of a political process promoted by the opposition, because of one alleged corruption scheme in public companies.

Only the impeachment motion, which narrowly managed to save amid strong protests from the indigenous movement last June, can be compared to the current moment the Ecuadorian president is going through.

Within a month, Lasso was in pain heavy setback at the polls in the face of an opposition that emerged strengthened by the electoral nomination and which is now pointing to a possible departure of the head of state, who still has more than 2 years of mandate, after the alleged corruption case in which he mentions his brother-in-law has come to light Daniel Carrera.

electoral setback

With the referendum, the Lasso government hoped to receive popular support to run as a candidate a series of constitutional reforms in the fields of security, institutions, democracy, political parties and the environment, but the result was the opposite.

The “no” won in the eight questions proposing issues such as allowing the extradition of Ecuadorians required for organized crime; reduce the number of members of the assembly; put up a minimum enclosure of affiliates to political movements, and strip the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS) of the power to elect authorities such as the attorney general and the comptroller.

The final results indicate that the closest vote was on the issue of extradition, where the “No” vote prevailed with 51.54%. In popular consultation won the oppositionwho fought vigorously for the “No” and who also triumphed in the local elections that took place the same day, defeating the movement linked to former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017) in nine of the 23 provincial prefectures involved and the Pachakutik Indigenous Movement in six others.

Even the Citizen Revolution, the party led by Correa hired the mayors of the most populated cities, such as Quito and Guayaquil, ending a 30-year hegemony of the right-wing Christian Social Party.

The situation was further complicated for Lasso by the digital media revelations The mail on an alleged corruption plot in public companies in which the entrepreneur Danilo Carrera, Lasso’s brother-in-law, was designated as “godfather”.

This was followed by the release of a police report filed a year ago into an investigation into a alleged drug trafficking network that he had among his targets the entrepreneur Rubén Cherres, another character close to the government party and presumably also to Carrera.

congressional inquiry

This led Parliament, with an opposition majority, to form a commission to investigate the facts and carry out a report recommending the impeachment of Lasso, with the assumption of alleged crimes against the security of the State and omission in crimes against the public administration, approved on Saturday by the plenary assembly.

The government, which has always denied being behind any scheme of corruption and has expressed interest in collaborating in any investigation, strongly rejected the parliamentary report, deeming it “lack of legal validity, non-binding”, as well as “a real own attack with reason and common sense.

Every request for impeachment must now pass to the scrutiny of the Constitutional Court, which must decide whether there are the conditions to open a trial.

In the event that the Constitutional Court annuls the hypothesis of impeachment, the opposition has already slipped the possibility of using other mechanisms such as the declaration of “mental incapacity” of the president to remove him from power.

One of the first to demonstrate in favor of Lasso’s exit, even before the alleged corruption plot in public companies in the energy sector was known, was Correa, who believed that it was not necessary to wait for the end of the presidential term for a change of ruler And the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, which has its political arm in Pachakutik, held an expanded council last week in which it also called for the departure of Lasso.

Source: EFE