( Spanish) — Guillermo Lasso is the president of Ecuador and the first right-wing ruler —elected under the banners of the Social Christian Party— to arrive at the Carondelet Palace in 18 years. In his tenure, he has faced the challenge of vaccination against covid-19, the increase in insecurity and violence in the country, personal health conditions and now a political trial for alleged embezzlement, a statement for which he declares innocent.
Lasso, 67, had been linked to the productive sector for 50 years before becoming president.
Lasso’s popularity has plummeted amid widespread discontent and a rise in crime rates.
The impeachment trial comes a few days after Lasso, who assumed the presidency of the country on May 24, 2021, will complete two years in the exercise of power.
Personal data of Guillermo Lasso:
- Birthdate: November 16, 1955.
- Age: 67 years
- Place of birth: Guayaquil, Ecuador.
- Full name: Guillermo Alberto Santiago Lasso Mendoza
- Wife: Maria de Lourdes Alciva. They have 5 children and 7 grandchildren.
- Career: He did not study a university degree. He became the executive president of the Banco de Guayaquil.
“I had to work from the age of 15 to pay the school pension where I studied in the morning, and worked in the afternoon,” Lasso told en Español in 2021. “And it was the way to contribute to the home economy my parents.
He says that he started “without a penny in his pocket”, and that it was thanks to work and effort that he managed to build a heritage.
Guillermo Lasso: a conservative politician close to the bank
The president of Ecuador, who in 2021 obtained more than 52% of the votes against his left-wing adversary, Andrés Arauz, was born in Guayaquil. He did not study at the university, but he was linked to the financial sector until he occupied the highest position at Banco de Guayaquil, one of the largest in Ecuador. Lasso resigned as the bank’s executive chairman in 2012 to devote himself fully to politics.
Guillermo Lasso is a conservative-leaning Catholic, the youngest of 11 siblings. He has been married to María de Lourdes Alcívar for 42 years. They both have 5 children and 7 grandchildren.
When the covid-19 pandemic broke out, he led the Save Lives initiative, to resume funds and provide supplies to the public health system with the support of private companies. The initiative has raised more than $8 million, according to its official site.
The presidency
Lasso ran for president on a platform of liberal values, promising more foreign direct investment and fostering entrepreneurship. Once in power, Lasso was praised for a successful Covid-19 vaccination campaign at the start of his term, enjoying high approval ratings at the time.
But early in his tenure, Lasso had to face the growing problem of insecurity and violence in the country, in the midst of prison riots and advancement of drug trafficking. The president, who has little power in Congress and has struggled to build coalitions, has implemented several states of emergency to curb violent crime in the country and prison riots between rival gangs.
In October 2021, Lasso decreed a state of emergency for “serious internal commotion” throughout the national territory to confront the escalation of violence and murders in the streets that have generated fear and anxiety among the population. It described drug trafficking as the “main enemy” of Ecuador and ordered the mobilization of the Armed Forces in the provinces of Guayas, Pichincha, El Oro, Santa Elena, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo, Manabí, Esmeraldas and Sucumbíos, for presenting the most high levels of criminal activity.
In January 2022, after the high homicide rates reported during the first weeks of the year in Guayaquil and the claims of citizens who say they feel defenseless, Lasso ordered a greater deployment of members of the Armed Forces and the National Police to guard high crime areas of the city.
In September of that year, the president dismissed two generals of the National Police and requested the resignation of the Minister of the Interior for the femicide of María Belén Bernal, a 34-year-old lawyer who was missing for 10 days and whose case unleashed a wave of solidarity and indignation in the country, due to the fact that she disappeared after entering the Higher Police School to see her husband, police lieutenant Germán Cáceres.
In April 2023, Lasso appointed two new authorities in the area of State security, in the midst of the crisis of violence and the escalation of crime in the country: the former Chief of Staff of the Army, Wagner Bravo, was appointed the new secretary of Public Security and of the State in replacement of Diego Ordóñez, who resigned on April 12 after a prison massacre in Guayaquil and an armed attack in the artisanal fishing port of Esmeraldas; and the former head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, Paco Moncayo, was appointed government adviser for national security.
The president has also confronted the social and political tension in the country, with the mobilization of various sectors. In June 2022, during a massive national strike with protests in the streets, Lasso declared a state of emergency in the provinces of Azuay, Imbabura, Sucumbíos and Orellana for 30 days to restore “public order”. In February 2023, the indigenous movement in Ecuador called for the resignation of the president and declared permanent mobilization.
In February 2023, the president did not achieve the result he expected in the sectional elections and the referendum held in Ecuador. Not only did the majority of citizens widely reject the changes to the Constitution proposed by the Government —among them reducing the number of assembly members and rethinking the designation of State control authorities— but also the Citizen Revolution, the movement led by former President Rafael Correa, obtained the victory in several capitals and in small cities.
In April, Lasso declared organized crime groups terrorists, a move that empowered the military to go after the gangs, despite allegations of corruption casting a shadow over security forces.
Violence and economic insecurity are driving more Ecuadorians to leave the country: statistics show thousands headed north through the Darien Gap this year.
The accusations against him
During the campaign, his relationship with the bank generated attacks from his adversaries, including criticism from the correísta Andrés Arauz, against whom he competed in the presidential runoff. “We all know that it was his banker friends who reached in and froze people’s deposits in the past,” Arauz said in a video posted during his online campaign. Arauz said that what Lasso wants is to “defend his privileges to charge commissions even for printing a receipt.”
Lasso defended himself by saying it had nothing to do with “the bank holiday” of 1999, when Ecuador froze the country’s bank deposits due to the “worst economic crisis of the 20th century,” according to former President Jamil Mahuad. After an accelerated devaluation of the local currency, the sucre, the country became a dollar. Lasso says he had nothing to do with the so-called “bank holiday.”
Correísmo created a commission in 2012 to investigate the “bank holiday” during the country’s financial crisis and concluded that Lasso did not benefit from, nor did he have any implications or responsibility in that decision of more than 20 years ago. “If I had anything to do with that decision, I would have already been prosecuted in Ecuador,” Lasso said.
In 2022, Lasso survived an impeachment attempt amid weeks-long protests over rising fuel and food prices, and his name appeared in the “Pandora papers,” a 2021 exposé of financial secrets and deals. abroad of dozens of heads of state and public officials. Ecuadorian law prohibits public servants from having assets in tax havens. Lasso told Ecuador’s legislative commission that he is investigating him, that he had not evaded taxes and that his tax trajectory was legally supported. The investigation was later archived by the Comptroller’s Office.
In March 2023, a commission of the National Assembly of Ecuador voted in favor of the report that recommends impeaching President Guillermo Lasso for alleged crimes against State security and public administration. The legislative commission was made up of seven assembly members after the State Attorney General’s Office began an investigation in January called “Caso Encuentro” for the alleged existence of a corruption scheme within at least four public companies.
On May 9, with 88 votes in favor, the National Assembly of Ecuador resolved to proceed with the political prosecution against President Guillermo Lasso, for alleged participation in the crime of embezzlement. According to the opposition, the president did not terminate a contract between the Ecuadorian Oil Fleet (Flopec) and the Amazonas Tankers consortium for the transportation of petroleum derivatives, which supposedly would have represented damages to state coffers.
The president has insisted that he is innocent and that those who seek to remove him want to destabilize the country and attack democracy. Lasso has denied since January the existence of a corruption structure in his government and has insisted that there are state institutions “concerned about overthrowing the government.”
Lasso’s health
In June 2021, he underwent a medium-complexity surgical intervention on his spine to remove a cyst in the lumbar area caused by medical malpractice that occurred years ago. The rehabilitation process has forced him to use a cane to counteract the limited mobility of his left leg.
In August 2022, Lasso confirmed to his cabinet members that he had been diagnosed with melanoma days after undergoing surgery on an eyelid lesion. He then traveled to Houston, United States, to receive care and treatment and said that “the operation to remove the melanoma located on the lower right eyelid was successful.”
In 2023 Lasso has received intravenous medication to counteract the urinary tract infection.
With information from Ana María Cañizares, Abel Alvarado, Tara John, Karol Suárez, Andrés Oppenheimer and Valentina González Galvis
