( Spanish) — Ecuador is experiencing convulsed days due to the increase in the country’s homicide rate, which according to the US Insight Crime study center rose 86% last year. It is also suffering the consequences of a prison crisis that continues with a spiral of violence, and a fight against drug trafficking that increasingly affects the security of the civilian population.
And in the midst of all this, there is the political whirlwind around the figure of President Guillermo Lasso: the country’s National Assembly is taking steps to impeach him for the alleged crime of embezzlement. Thus, with an Ecuadorian Congress with an opposition majority, the president could face impeachment in the near future.
Guillermo Lasso spoke with Andrés Oppenheimer about how he would face a political trial, the fight against drug trafficking and his vision of the country. These are some excerpts from the interview.
Two government models
“What is happening in Ecuador is a debate between two models: the one, populist and totalitarian, that we Ecuadorians already know from 2007 to 2017, and a model that my government represents, which is a democratic, liberal, and humanist model.” Lasso says about what is at stake in his country as a result of the impeachment process.
“Democracy, the Presidency of the Republic as an institution, my government and I are under attack by an opposition that does not want to recognize the achievements of my government in just 22 months of management,” he says, adding: “they want to see me out because I am uncomfortable for many of them, not for all of them”.
“I have to defend my honor too”
Asked what instance he has left if he is dismissed in a political trial, Guillermo Lasso replies: “I have decided to go to the National Assembly, defend myself, because I also have to defend my honor, I have not committed embezzlement and I have to tell all the members of the Assembly. After that, I will make the decision that I consider most appropriate for Ecuador”.
Does that decision include the constitutional figure colloquially known cross death? Lasso affirms that he has not wanted to decree it because he has thought “that stability is what allows us to lower inflation, achieve economic growth, job creation.”
Cross death is a legal figure that allows the president to dissolve the National Assembly to later call elections, in order to renew the Legislative and Executive Powers.
“Both drug traffickers and corruption have some members of the assembly, I am not saying all of them, some members of the assembly, which I will say publicly the day I go to the Assembly, they have their representatives and also those representatives of these corruption and drug trafficking groups. Well, we have to face them,” affirms the president.
“They have no drugs to trade”
Lasso partly attributes the increase in crime to activities related to drug trafficking. He assures that his government has taken significant blows in terms of production and seizures, which according to him is equivalent to an annual average of 200 tons per year.
“What’s going on? That the organized criminal groups, the inmates, don’t have drugs to trade, they don’t have drugs. Then their criminal capacity is mutated towards other crimes, such as extortion, blackmail, kidnapping attempts and also violent deaths ”, she affirms.
The Pacific Alliance
Why isn’t Ecuador part of the Pacific Alliance with Mexico, Colombia and Chile? President Lasso says it without qualms: “because Mexico does not want to sign a free trade agreement with Ecuador.”
According to the president, Mexico “does not want to accept bananas as part of the agreement, nor does it want to accept shrimp.” These are his reasons.
Guillermo Lasso’s interview on “Oppenheimer Presenta” aired on Sunday, April 16.
