Ecuador’s president Guillermo Lasso is set to appear before lawmakers on Tuesday to stand trial on impeachment charges that could result in his ouster, as tensions over the proceedings in the Andean nation run high.
Lasso, a former banker, is facing charges in the opposition-controlled legislature of embezzlement related to contracts awarded to state-owned oil transport company Flopec. Lasso has denied the charges and cast them as politically motivated. The contracts in question were awarded in 2018, three years before he took office.
Congress is expected to hold a vote on Lasso’s censure and impeachment at the weekend. A supermajority of 92 out of 137 lawmakers is needed to secure his removal. Lawmakers last week agreed to move ahead with a trial by a simple majority of 88 votes out of the 116 members present.
Lasso’s prospects of surviving the latest proceedings dimmed further on Sunday when congress re-elected as its president Virgilio Saquicela, an independent who supports Lasso’s impeachment. Lasso’s Creo party was left without representation on crucial oversight committees.
“Lasso’s chances were never good, but Sunday’s vote shows that it is very possible that within five days he will be censured and impeached,” said Sofía Cordero, a Quito-based political scientist at the Observatory for Political Reforms in Latin America.
Despite receiving plaudits for Ecuador’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign and a debt restructuring deal with China, Lasso has struggled to govern since taking office two years ago, unable to overcome a hostile congress and failing to contain a rise in drug-related violence. He could survive impeachment this week, though analysts say he would be rendered a lame duck with an emboldened opposition in congress.
“None of the options available are good,” Cordero said. “They all bring instability, uncertainty and ungovernability.”
At any point before removal, Lasso could dissolve congress and trigger presidential and legislative elections under the so-called mutual death clause in Ecuador’s constitution. In that scenario, he would govern by decree — overseen by the constitutional court — for six months while elections take place.
Lasso told the Financial Times last month that he would activate the clause if congress moved to oust him. But opposition lawmakers, as well as Saquicela, have said that such a move would be challenged by congress.
The coalition to impeach Lasso crosses ideological boundaries. The leftist Union For Hope (UNES) party — led by former president Rafael Correa, who is living in Belgium to avoid being imprisoned for corruption — has pledged its 47 votes to remove Lasso. The rightwing Social Christian party also supports impeachment, though it has lost a handful of members over the issue.
“We may have ideological differences but we are united in saving Ecuador from the nefarious actions of president Lasso,” said Viviana Veloz, a UNES lawmaker who is one of the leaders of the impeachment process.
The indigenous Pachakutik party could prove decisive. It split last week on whether to continue with Lasso’s trial, though on Sunday largely supported the re-election of Saquicela as well as other supporters of impeachment to important posts.
Amid the uncertainty in congress, indigenous leaders have threatened to call for a resumption of protests that paralysed the country last June and almost forced Lasso from office in another impeachment trial, which he survived.
“If the government makes the wrong decisions and provokes a social reaction . . . we will declare a national mobilisation,” said Leonidas Iza, the anti-capitalist leader of the powerful Conaie indigenous federation that led the protests. “We are going to be standing by.”
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