Our Constitution guarantees the right of citizens to revoke the mandate of popularly elected authorities. But since the government does not like to be recalled, in 2011 it reformed the Law on Citizen Participation and set conditions that the Constitution does not establish for the exercise of this right. A serious attack on democracy, which surprisingly was not declared unconstitutional! Because of this obstacle, in 2022 the National Electoral Council rejected a request to collect signatures from citizens who support the initiative seeking to revoke the mandate of the head of state, and the second-instance Electoral Court has just confirmed the decision, despite the fact that it had a constitutional obligation to make the Magna Carta prevail. It is unusual for the administrative authority to claim that it is more than the people, the only sovereign. Because of these traps, because of the distrust in the institutional framework that many citizens have, they resort to street democracy and overthrow governments. We have experienced this in recent times.

scenarios? nothing new or good

The National Assembly has and should have the authority to supervise the executive branch. Dictatorship is the opposite. He can politically persecute the President of the Republic for committing transcendent crimes and for this purpose requires an opinion on the admissibility of the Constitutional Court (US). And it is good that it is so, because the will of the inspector cannot be arbitrary or unreasonable, as defined by the said Court, in contrast to the people, who do not have to answer for their actions and judgment except themselves. history.

Judges or executioners?

CAL draws attention and warns legislator Fernando Villavicencio not to interfere with the conduct of the political trial of President Guillermo Lasso

The Constitutional Court decided by a majority of votes that the political process against the president, due to the criminal offense of embezzlement for which he is charged, should continue. He accepted that he is being prosecuted for the accusation that he and other officials allegedly diverted funds from the public company Flopec in the execution of contracts concluded with an oil transportation company, and one was concluded even during his mandate, despite the fact that the State Supervisor determined that the previous contract signed with the same company was harmful and he ignored two letters sent to him by the former director of Flopec, in which he condemned corrupt acts in that public company.

The president’s blackmail of the parliamentarians is reprehensible: if they behave well, they do not dissolve the Assembly.

It is possible that the parliamentarians will not be able to prove that he committed the crime for which he is accused, but he must explain to the people these actions and the failure to denounce what they denounced to the Prosecutor’s Office, as well as the sale of public functions, which barely cost the former high official at Banco Guayaquil his job , giving him great power in public enterprises, a fact even noted by the government’s anti-corruption secretary.

The president’s blackmail of the parliamentarians is reprehensible: if they behave well, they do not dissolve the Assembly. But he cannot do this while the trial is ongoing, to do so would be to ignore his role as he did with Guadalupe Llori and act against the democratic sense. With the result of the referendum, he should have resigned. You can do it now. (OR)