2023-05-16 16:39:23
Today is a fundamental day for Ecuador. The legislators began the process to decide whether or not to accept the “censorship and dismissal” of President Guillermo Lasso for alleged participation in the crime of embezzlement. It is the first time that a president has been subjected to a political trial since the 2008 Constitution was approved.
The president has insisted that he is innocent and Who “They seek to remove him, they want to destabilize the country and attack democracy.”
What may be the end of Lasso’s right-wing government is for the beginningto the left bloc an opportunity to recover strength from the hand of its leader, former president Rafael Correa, fugitive and sentenced to eight years in prison.
A trial of a president “It is one of the most serious points of the political act between the Assembly and the presidency, between two State powers”political scientist Esteban Nichols, from the Simón Bolívar Andean University in Quito, told AFP.
The process, which began at 10 in the morning in Ecuador (noon in Argentina) and could take several days, awakens the ghosts of the political instability that Ecuador experienced between 1997 and 2005, when three rulers who emerged from the polls were overthrown.
However, Nichols qualifies, explaining that this time The trial against Lasso is taking place “within institutional channels” and not through popular revolts as happened then.
Congress requires 92 of the 137 votes to remove Lasso, accused of alleged embezzlement in the management of the state shipping company Flota Petrolera Ecuatoriana (Flopec).
According to the complaints, the president, in power since 2021, continued with a contract signed before it took possession for the transportation of crude oil with the international group Amazonas Tanker, which left losses of more than six million dollars.
Aged 67, the former banker is once again between a rock and a hard place. Last June Parliament tried by direct vote to remove him amid violent indigenous protests against the high cost of living.
To Congress, on that occasion, he lacked 12 votes to finalize the removal due to a serious political crisis and internal commotion.
If saved again, Lasso will have nothing more than “see how the country continues down the cliff” by having to govern with an opposition Congress and without communication bridges, Constitutionalist Rafael Oyarte told AFP.
Bloody demonstrations against the government and failures at the polls have weakened the president’s image. Adding up his allies, The ruling party has only 25 legislators versus 49 from Correísmo. And Lasso will not measure forces only with that current but also with the leftist Pachakutik, the political arm of the powerful indigenous sector and the second force in the Legislative with some twenty seats.
Anti-government social organizations have also called for mobilizations this Tuesday while the trial is taking place, in which the head of state will have three hours to present his defense in the chamber.
to the opposition “the only thing that interests him is destabilization above the stability and institutional strengthening that the country so much needs”expressed the Minister of Government, Henry Cucalón, to the press.
He called the trial a “ruse” and He added that “there is no process or evidence that can support an indictment or removal.”
The Organization of American States (OAS) noted in a statement the need for the trial “offer all the guarantees of justice and respect the rules of due process.”
Up his sleeve, the president has the mechanism of the so-called cross death, which implies dissolving Congress to make way for early general elections. “That’s when there could potentially be a social problem, a real instability” because of the power struggles and gaps left by that figure, Nichols said.
Cross death was implemented by the Correa government (2007-2017) and it would be the first time it was applied. For Oyarte, this mechanism It would be a “political irresponsibility” that would benefit left-wing groups such as Correísmo in the case of elections before the hour.
“Although it is not certain that they will obtain the presidency of the Republic, one thing is certain: their parliamentarians, who today number 49 out of 137, will raise their seats,” held.
if censored, Lasso would become the second Ecuadorian president to be dismissed in impeachment after Juan de Dios Martínez (1932-1933) was dismissed in 1933.
He will be subrogated by his Vice President Alfredo Borrero to complete the four-year period.
AP
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