What are the most pressing problems plaguing our country? Safety certainly comes first, followed closely by a host of issues including lack of opportunity, corruption, underemployment, education, our ailing health care system and our sclerotic justice system. These are all serious problems, which together cause untold suffering for millions of our countrymen.

The numbers paint a gloomy picture. We are one of the countries with the highest homicide rates in the region, a country where more than 5 million people earn less than $3 a day, and a nation where one in four women has suffered sexual violence. This series of terrorist statistics could easily be extended, but I believe that we Ecuadorians do not need numbers to tell us what our eyes see every day: the palpable pain of those who sleep forgotten under our bridges, the future destroyed by drugs and the pools of blood that stain our streets daily .

In three cases, the Parliament has already declared “inadmissible” the requests of national judges to approve the prosecution of former presidents

Now, faced with this veritable postcard from hell, what is the priority of our new National Assembly? Which of all these formidable problems will be faced first? The state must know that. Will they first try to ensure the safety of our streets? Defend against drug trafficking? Save our youth from drugs? Protect our women from violence? No, ladies and gentlemen. Although it sounds like a joke, the first priority of our newly minted members of parliament is to continue the impeachment process of Guillermo Lass, that is, to replace the president who is no longer president. The same “brilliant” minds who invented the figure of “peculation by omission” (a legal nonsense similar to the “married single” story) to start this circus are now twisting and twisting the Constitution to keep the show from ending, even though Article 129 of the same is very clear that impeachment proceedings are conducted only against the president who is in office.

The National Assembly did not condemn former President of the Republic Guillermo Lasso, but singled him out as politically responsible for embezzlement

Champions at finding a cat’s heel. If our parliamentarians had used even half of that effort and creativity to solve the real problems of our country, we would have reached the first world a long time ago.

We Ecuadorians must be very clear: every minute that the Assembly wastes continuing with this insignificant farce is a minute that the members of the assembly did not devote to solving the real problems of our poor country. Every lost minute in this sad circus is a real slap in the face to all citizens who ultimately finance this spectacle with our taxes. Aren’t you ashamed?

During the last few months, Ecuador, for all its problems, has found at least some peace when the National Assembly sessions were empty and its ridiculous cacophony died down. Those days are unfortunately over. The sewage is back, and its smell is as sickening as before. (OR)