• Guillermo Lasso Begins the political trial against the president of Ecuador
  • For 60 days The president of Ecuador decrees the state of emergency and allows the use of weapons for personal defense

"If we dare to turn it around, we are still on time." President Guillermo Lasso has gone to the National Assembly today to face the historic political trial with which the powerful opposition alliance intends to dismiss him mid-term. And he has done so, backed by thousands of supporters, to reach out to undecided deputies who can turn around a vote that today seems against him in this "institutional assault".

"I am glad to see that they have not allowed themselves to be dragged into chaos," said the Ecuadorian president, under maximum pressure. The bloc formed by the parliamentarians of the citizen revolution, commanded from exile by former President Rafael Correa; the Social Christians led from Guayaquil by the populist leader Jaime Nebot; and the radical indigenous led by Leónidas Iza, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations (Conaie) need 92 of the 137 seats to dismiss Lasso. As of Sunday, they believe they have at least 96 supporters.

Favored by the flimsy accusation of alleged embezzlement, the conservative president defended himself with solvency in a speech that only lasted for 40 minutes, despite having three hours to do so. Lasso dismantled the Flopec plot, which began with a contract for oil transportation made in 2018, when his government did not begin to exercise until 2021. "More than a year ago I sent the entire file to the Attorney General's Office, but the questioners do not want to see this and show their perverse bias," counterattacked the president, who insisted on how "unusual it is to find myself guilty of something that I myself have denounced."

"The viability of a government is not at stake, but that of Ecuador as a state. We are playing democracy", insisted the president, who after the first minutes of counterattack went on to list the "successes" of a management criticized by a large part of society and that can only present as a great achievement the express vaccination against Covid achieved in the first months of his mandate.

As he left the plenary hall, Lasso greeted several of his allies from the Pachakutik (PK) indigenous party, which is essential to subtract votes from the opposition alliance. The fate of the president seems to depend on these seats, who did not suffer great hardship during the intervention of his two interpelantes, the revolutionary assemblywoman Viviana Veloz and the social Christian Esteban Torres.

Protesters in support of Lasso, this Tuesday. GALO PAGUAYAFP

"It has failed and betrayed the popular will, it is time for change," Torres concluded. The PSC went to the presidential elections in alliance with the movement headed by Lasso, but disagreements in the distribution of positions caused the total rupture. Four of the parliamentarians elected on their lists have left their bench in recent days, opposed to the dismissal of the president.

"The voice of Viviana Veloz is the voice of the Ecuadorian people," said the legislator herself, who told Lasso what her three ways out are: resignation, dismissal and jail.

"They are all paid (in reference to the supporters stationed before the Assembly)! Nobody supports Lasso, he has what he always deserved," Correa criticized from his speaker on social networks, from where he directed the attacks against his great enemy. The former president, a fugitive from justice after being sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption, would be one of the great beneficiaries of the fall of Lasso.

"Lasso must be removed, his economic-political model, his incapacity has led us to the worst social and political disaster that Ecuador has known in just two years. The people will no longer tolerate hesitations from the Assembly or absences from the PK," said Leónidas Iza, who has threatened new indigenous marches to Quito if they do not win a parliamentary victory.

Both the presidency and the Parliament do not reach 20% of popular support in a country shaken by the wave of violence caused by drug trafficking, which endures high levels of unemployment and with a new migratory flight.

  • Ecuador
  • Petroleum
  • Rafael Correa
  • Unemployment

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