Ecuador: Lasso faces a second vacancy motion in Congress for corruption

The opposition Congress of Ecuador resolved this Tuesday to impeach the president William Lasso for alleged corruption, in his second attempt to remove him in less than a year.

With 88 votes in favor of the 116 assembly members present at the session, the Legislature gave the green light to the motion against the right-wing ruler, who is accused of alleged embezzlement in a state contract for the transportation of crude oil.

Twenty-three deputies opposed and five abstained from voting on the trial that still does not have a start date.

At the end of the session, which lasted more than five hours, there was applause and shouts of “out lasso” in the plenary session of the unicameral Parliament (with 137 seats).

The opposition led by the left-wing movement Revolución Ciudadana, of former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), accuses Lasso of committing an alleged embezzlement in the management of the state company Ecuadorian Oil Fleet (Flopec) through contracts entered into between 2018 and 2020.

The president is accused of not ordering in his administration the termination of a contract between flopc and the international group Amazon Tankerwhich includes Russian firms, despite the fact that it was detrimental to state interests by leaving losses of more than six million dollars to the Ecuadorian company.

cross death

Correísmo is the main force in Congress, with close to 50 seats, while the ruling party Creating Opportunities (CREO) has a dozen.

Lasso, 67, has said on other occasions that he will attend the trial, also endorsed by the Constitutional Court, because it is his “obligation to face the people”.

However, it has also warned that among its constitutional powers is to dissolve the National Assembly once and within its first three years of management, to make way for early general elections with a view to completing the four-year period, which which is called ‘death cross‘.

“I would not want the pages of history to write that I dictated a cross death to avoid impeachment. I do not avoid impeachment, I will go to the Assembly”, He later qualified in April.

Earlier, the Ministry of Government indicated that the legislative process lacked validity.

“It is not admissible to want to violate due process, by submitting to impeachment without a reasoned report,” since the parliamentary Oversight Committee -in charge of the process- could not approve a recommendation on Saturday whether or not to proceed with the trial against the ruler, wrote down the portfolio on his Twitter account.

“Sui generis” theory

The Minister of Government, Henry Cucalón, defended that it has not been possible to prove that the president has committed embezzlement.

“With his sui generis theory of embezzlement by omission that does not exist, legally the process was down,” Cucalón said in statements to the press released by the portfolio.

If censured, Lasso would become the second Ecuadorian president to be removed by impeachment in 90 years. In 1933, with this mechanism, the ex-governor Juan de Dios Martínez (1932-1933) was dismissed from his duties.

On the outskirts of the Legislative, a small group of opponents of the government demanded the dismissal of Lasso, who took office in May 2021.

This is the second time that the National Assembly – where the opposition is in the majority but is dispersed – has tried to remove the unpopular ruler from office.

In the midst of violent indigenous protests due to the high cost of living, last June, a group of deputies presented a motion for dismissal due to serious social unrest, but did not obtain the necessary votes.

To remove a president, the will of 92 of the 137 assembly members (two thirds) is needed.

Source: AFP