The dissolution of the National Assembly, the constitutional authority of the President of the Republic granted by Article 148, was carried out by President Guillermo Lasso for the first time in the history of Ecuador.

This fact, transcendental in itself, unprecedented, puts the executive power and the Constitutional Court in a situation of great potential and great risks.

On the one hand, a president who has no restrictions in the Constitution to send any project he deems urgent in economic matters, may be tempted to believe that the country can be completely transformed in six months. On the other hand, the Court may act with fear and legal or political doubts in the face of the President’s clear authority.

The history of the last 40 years in Ecuador shows the great inability of the Assembly to produce fundamental changes, as well as the great ability to blackmail the executive power that it used in front of the eyes and patience of citizens, the media, and the entire society.

Everything related to economic issues is urgent today. The government cannot continue with an absolutely irrational interest rate structure, which eats away at the ability of companies to increase their equipment and renew it. Credit goes to consumption. We do not want an economy that grows through consumption, but through investments, through the creation of new jobs, through an increase in production that leads to greater savings, and to repeat the cycle of more investment and more production and more employment. The problem of interest shouts loudly that it is no longer there, that the situation cannot continue like this, because it works completely against this good cycle.

(…) it will either be a great opportunity for important changes or a missed opportunity.

The state of social security, especially the disability, old age and death fund, must be addressed urgently, very urgently. Labor legislation, absolutely stagnant, is one of the great enemies of job creation. It can’t go on like this. This is another urgent reform. More investment is needed in the oil sector: there are urgent reforms. As for the budget, there are urgent needs. There are many things that are urgent, because they have been forgotten for years, they have not been dealt with for years, and because of the populism that prevails, and the way of campaigning in Ecuador, these issues are not resolved, not resolved, nor discussed.

Here, the big dilemma that the function of constitutional control and the Executive function have before history is to produce a civilized agreement that leads to the maximum possible changes, within common sense and sound logic.

Isidro Ayora produced gigantic changes in Ecuador in his government, in which there was no Assembly. Clemente Yerovi made an effective transitional government. These few months are a transitional space. The constitution allows death on the cross and it was given. It authorizes the president to send emergency decrees-laws in economic matters, which must pass the constitutional review of the Court. The road is made as it goes, and it will either be a great opportunity for great change or a missed opportunity. (OR)