( Spanish) — With 104 votes in favor and 18 against, the plenary session of the Ecuadorian Assembly voted in favor of the report prepared by an occasional legislative commission that recommends the impeachment of President Guillermo Lasso. The president is accused of alleged acts of corruption in public companies that involve a close circle of collaborators and former officials.
These facts are being investigated since January by the State Attorney’s Office within the “Encuentro Case”. It is about an alleged “criminal structure” where officials, former officials and individuals would have operated in the granting of positions and contracts with companies irregularly.
The plenary session began this Saturday morning and for more than seven hours the assembly members from different benches debated the content of the report approved on Wednesday. With the vote, the Assembly supported the prosecution of Lasso for the “commission by omission” of the crimes of bribery, embezzlement and embezzlement.
President Lasso asked the Prosecutor’s Office, through a statement, to carry out the “pertinent investigations, with all the rigor and depth that the seriousness of these falsehoods warrants.”
The president has denied since January the existence of a structure of corruption in the Executive Power and has insisted that there are State institutions “concerned about overthrowing the Government.”
During the debate, the legislator of the ruling party Creating Opportunities (CREO), Juan Fernando Flores, rejected the content of the report, which he considered irresponsible and a liar.
“No test. There are no causes. This is part of a fable that they sought to build where the moral that they cannot use the Assembly again and try to deceive the Ecuadorian people will remain,” said Flores.
Meanwhile, the assembly member of the Correista Union for Hope (UNES) movement, Esther Cuesta, lashed out at Lasso.
“Lasso breached the principle of transparency. He did not denounce the facts that caused damage to the public administration. He did not fulfill his duty and his functions with institutional loyalty and good faith, ”Cuesta pointed out.
In a message to the country after the vote, Minister of Government Henry Cucalón called the report approved by the plenary session “embarrassing” and emphasized that it is legally invalid and not binding.
“Deep down, it is an arrangement of patches and rectifications where, at their whim and convenience, they have also left out characters who should be investigated. A true attack on reason and common sense,” said Cucalón. He added that the Constitution has been “tampered with” to violate democracy in a report “dantesque in law and aberrant in politics.”
“Attempting in a perverse way to fabricate a fable, that is how they tell it a thousand times is not true, to try to fabricate a political trial on the fly against the President of the Republic. It is not an act of control, it is an act of evident destabilization, ”she pointed out.
After the approval of the “non-binding” report that suggests the political prosecution of Lasso, it must be the Constitutional Court that reviews the petition to determine whether or not to proceed with the political trial for the causes or reasons argued by the assembly members.
Regardless of this pronouncement, the legislator and president of the occasional commission that prepared the report that recommended the impeachment, Viviana Veloz, announced that next week they could request the impeachment before the Legislative Administration Council (administrative body of the Assembly) with the signatures of the assembly members that support it.
For the presentation of this formal request and the start of a process through the regular path of political prosecution, at least 46 signatures of support from the assembly members are required to start the process.
The Legislative Administration Council (CAL) will analyze whether the request meets the requirements and, if so, will send the request to the Constitutional Court for it to issue its opinion of admissibility and determine whether or not to proceed with the trial.
If the Court issues a ruling to the contrary, the intention of the legislators is shelved. But if he admits the prosecution, the president of the Assembly must once again put it under consideration by the CAL, which in turn will send it to the Oversight Commission of the Assembly for processing. The commission will have 30 days to present its report recommending or not the impeachment.
If the Commission suggests impeachment, the report goes to the plenary for the impeachment of the president, who will have his space to defend himself and be questioned.
If the legislators decide to vote for their censure and dismissal, they will need a qualified majority of 92 votes, according to the Organic Law of the Legislative Function.
