• Latin America The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, intends to recover the pulse with today's referendum
  • Tragedy A gigantic avalanche leaves at least 7 dead and 64 missing after burying part of a town in Ecuador

Guillermo Lasso suffered in person this past Monday the political and social tension that has invaded Ecuador. The president went to Alausí, an Andean municipality affected by a landslide that swallowed 70 people, including 60 missing people who are still being sought by authorities.

Groups of enraged citizens gathered in front of the building where the president was meeting with local leaders, even wanting to access the presidential vehicle, which forced the action of the police. The avalanche was on this occasion of insults.

The incident reveals the high tension when the conservative president faces a decision by the Constitutional Court that may lead to his dismissal when he has only been at the helm of the country for two years. The judges must rule whether to give free rein for the National Assembly to carry out the political trial that puts him between a rock and a hard place, since the opposition is the majority in the Chamber.

The transcendental decision of the judges will be known in the next few hours, but the advance of Monday, when a proposal to bury the political trial against Lasso was voted against six to three, sweeps a majority favorable to the opponents.

Once in Parliament, it would be enough for 92 deputies to join his censure, something possible since next to the bench of the citizen revolution, commanded from abroad by former President Rafael Correa, the Social Christians, former allies of Lasso, the radicals of the indigenous party Pachakutik and the dissidents of the Democratic Left have been located.

However, between such an atypical opposition (left-wing populists and right-wing populists) differences have also emerged, accusing each other of seeking behind-the-scenes pacts with the ruling party.

"The obvious political opposition just wants to destabilize democracy. It is a very blind opposition that does not want to respect four-year electoral periods. They try to twist the laws through a parliamentary coup d'état," Lasso denounced in front of his peers in the region during the Ibero-American Summit in Santo Domingo.

Journalistic investigation

The political trial that has him on the ropes arose with a journalistic investigation of the electronic newspaper La Posta, which revealed a corruption plot in state spheres with the prominence of a brother-in-law of the president. The scandal ignited at the worst possible time for Lasso, as Ecuador suffers an unprecedented wave of violence, caused by drug trafficking. In the last few hours alone, two policemen were killed, one of them belonging to the Anti-Narcotics Brigade.

If the Constitutional Court opens the window of the trial and it obtains the necessary votes in the Assembly, Lasso will only have one card to play: cross death. It is a constitutional tool that allows him to dissolve Parliament and call elections several months ahead, during which he would govern through decrees.

From the opposition, voices have already been raised against cross death, which for different jurists and constitutionalists has limits that are difficult to resolve.

"Ecuador has no future as long as Correa and his people continue to boycott any management that is not their own, any vision of the country and the region that do not coincide with theirs," warned María Paula Romo, head of the Government during the mandate of President Lenin Moreno and dissident of the ranks of the citizen revolution.

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  • Ecuador
  • Lenin Moreno
  • Rafael Correa
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  • Justice