The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, will be prosecuted for alleged crimes of corruption before the National Assembly, in a process that was given the green light by the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court and could result in the removal of the president.
Parliament now has a period of 45 days to complete Lasso’s impeachment, in a procedure that began on Friday, just two days after the extraordinary session of the Court, which approved the Assembly’s request with six votes in favor on three against
“What corresponds now is to pass it (the process) to the Supervisory Commission (of the Assembly), which has 30 days to process the trial divided into three periods of ten days each. Ten days to notify the president and ask him to present the evidence of which it is believed assisted, also to the accusers”, he explained to the voice of america the second vice president of the Ecuadorian National Assembly, Darwin Pereira.
From this first period, “ten additional days will continue for these tests to be acted on, the confrontation is made and then the last ten days for the commission to prepare its report, which by the way is not a binding report,” Pereira explained. .
“We will know this report in plenary, more or less on the 34th or 35th from now (Thursday, March 30) and there the final decision will be made in plenary session,” explained the assemblyman, Secretary General of the Movement Pachakutik Plurinational Unity that defends the interests of indigenous populations in the country.
To remove the president, a majority of 92 votes is required, equivalent to two thirds of the unicameral Parliament, made up of 137 assembly members.
“It is highly probable that the government will not receive the 92 votes necessary for a censure, due to three factors: mobile majorities within the Legislature that make it easy for legislators not to follow partisan discipline; the government minister’s great ability for political operation; and the institutional design, which means that the executive has the upper hand with the ability to dissolve Parliament, a tool that legislators fear,” he told the VOA the Ecuadorian political scientist, Pedro Donoso.
What is Lasso accused of?
Guillermo Lasso became president of Ecuador after winning the 2021 elections with a campaign focused on creating jobs, reducing taxes, fighting corruption and improving healthcare.
The third was the charm for the former banker, who lost in the presidential elections against former presidents Rafael Correa in 2013 and in 2017 against Lenín Moreno. His victory came after he managed to broaden his base beyond the traditional right.
However, since he assumed the head of state, Lasso has been involved in various controversies and riots. He has been accused of have accounts abroad in the Pandora Papers case and had to face weeks of indigenous strike and violent protests against new economic measures, in the summer of 2022.
At that time, an attempt was made to file a presidential impeachment procedure, which did not gather the necessary votes in the Assembly.
The case that has brought the Ecuadorian president to trial before Parliament was presented to the body by a commission with an opposition majority, which filed a report about an alleged case of corruption and alleged links of those close to power with criminal groups.
The plot came to light thanks to a report in the local newspaper The postwhich brought to light a case that would later be known as “The Great Godfather”, where Danilo Carrera, the president’s brother-in-law, and the former Lasso official, Hernán Luque, are accused of creating a network to “loot” the companies public.
Lasso is accused of participating in an alleged corruption scheme in public companies, concussion and alleged embezzlement or embezzlement.
According to audios presented by The postthe corruption network allegedly profited and decided to whom the contracts with the National Electricity Corporation of Ecuador (CNEL), the Ecuadorian Oil Fleet (Flopec), Petroecuador and the Electricity Corporation of Ecuador (Celec) went.
The assembly members hold the president responsible for the operation of a corruption structure that would have appropriated public funds through contracts between the public company Flota Petrolera Ecuatoriana and the company Amazonas Tanker.
The request presented before the Constitutional Court contained these crimes, however, in its opinion, it dismissed the accusations of extortion, but accepted the embezzlement.
“The majority of the Plenary of this Body resolved to inadmit the two accusations related to the alleged crime of concussion and admit the accusation of impeachment related to the alleged crime of embezzlement,” said the Constitutional Court when publishing its decision through a statement on Twitter .
Lasso’s government defends its innocence
Immediately after the Constitutional Court’s ruling was made public, the Lasso government reacted by rejecting the impeachment trial, in a statement published by the Presidency’s Communications Secretariat.
The official position “rejects impeachment, respects the decision of the Constitutional Court and confirms the innocence of President Guillermo Lasso.”
“Although we do not agree with the decision of the Constitutional Court, we respect the opinion of admissibility on the impeachment of the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, requested by the National Assembly. This decision, in no way, validates the arguments raised by the legislature against the President,” the spokesperson insisted.
Lasso, who met with the United States ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield in Quito on Wednesday, has not yet spoken directly.
“Test by fire” for the Constitution
“It should be noted that at this moment the Constitution is undergoing a litmus test. Let’s remember that this was not foreseen in previous constitutions and if it had been, for example, with the Constitution of 98, the president would have been out a while ago” said Darwin Pereira.
The assemblyman assured that the process seems “positive” to him, which “has forced to act within a framework of legality, although this is a political process, the legality and constitutionality of the acts has not been left out, which is what maintains a system,” insisted the assemblyman.
For Donoso it is also cause for celebration. “It is necessary to celebrate that a country like Ecuador, where in the 2000s it was the streets and the barracks that ended presidential terms, today it is the institutions and the functioning Constitution that can determine these processes,” specified the analyst and director of the communication consultancy ICARE.
“It is necessary to celebrate that there is an Assembly that can collect signatures and question a president, that there is a constitutional court that can give way or not to a trial. It is important that in the situation of high political tension and social fragmentation there are escape valves institutions that manage these conflicts,” he warned.
Could Lasso activate “cross kill”?
As president, Guillermo Lasso has at his disposal a formula to avoid prosecution, which implies the activation of a constitutional figure called “cross death” that empowers the president to immediately dissolve the Legislative.
After this, Lasso could rule by decree for about six months, before being forced to call elections.
“We have foreseen, within the Assembly, the possibility for the president to apply the death cross (…) We keep it in mind, however we have always said that we cannot act within an Assembly based on blackmail, we cannot act based on fear,” insisted the second vice president of Parliament.
Pereira added that it is up to the assembly members “to fulfill our role of overseeing and legislating, and if within the framework of this oversight, within the framework of that legislation; since the president chooses to go for the death crossIt is a power, it is a democratic process, it is a constitutional process and of course a legal process as well, which is provided for in a law; We cannot oppose it.”
“Of course, once (the president) is on trial, from my legal point of view, I could no longer order the death cross, because he is being tried and with the death cross what he would do is judge the judges. That breaks the principle of due process,” the legislator clarified.
The assemblyman recalled that “the Constitution itself protects due process” and added that Lasso “could have done it even before this trial and will be able to do it afterward, if he comes out well in this trial, there is no problem; but within a trial politician, it seems to me that there is no room for death cross“, he concluded.
For his part, Donoso warns that this seems like a possibility “that is of medium probability in the short term, but high in the medium term.”
“The scenario that we have proposed and that seems the most probable is that there are no votes for censorship and that the post-trial failure scenario is social mobilization where, yes, cross death is a high-probability tool,” said the political scientist and doctor of law.
[Néstor Aguilera, periodista de la VOA, colaboró con este reporte desde Quito]
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