2023-05-17 16:51:36
The president of Ecuador, the conservative Guillermo Lassohas decreed this Wednesday the dissolution of the National Assembly, with an opposition majority, and has convened early elections. Since early in the morning, dozens of soldiers and riot police have been restricting access to the surroundings of parliament. Lasso intends to continue governing through decrees until his successor takes office and avoid a boycott by the opposition, which has already has activated 14 political trials of ministers “to generate instability in the cabinet and hinder the work of the government,” according to Lasso.
In a message to the nation, the president announced the dissolution of Parliament through the legal mechanism called “cross death” by the “serious internal and political commotion” of the country. All this has happened after having appeared before the Assembly on Tuesday to make his defense argument against the accusation made by the opposition for an alleged crime of embezzlement.
Lasso, who has been denouncing the attempt by the left pro-Rafael Correa to “assault democracy and take advantage of the chaos to destroy the institutionality in Ecuador”, a legal figure contemplated in the Constitution has resorted to “cross death”, which allows it to dissolve Parliament. A second day of debate in the Chamber was still pending before the vote of the motion of no confidence, in which the opposition would have needed 92 votes to remove Lasso, that is, two thirds of the chamber.
“Destabilize the Government, democracy and the State”
During his institutional speech, Lasso pointed out that “Ecuador needs a new political and social pact that allows it to get out of the serious political crisis in which it finds itself and which, unfortunately, deepens every day”.
He also stressed that this solution must put an end to “an irrational and useless confrontation” and pointed out that it is not possible to move forward and face the deep challenges “to which insecurity and terrorism submit us with an Assembly that has as its political project the government destabilizationof democracy and of the State”.
Once again, he denounced that in the last two years, “a sector of national politics has tried to overthrow the democratically elected government.” This destabilizing project “went up a notch with the blocking of legislative initiatives presented by the Executive” and affirmed that “all the efforts of the legislature are focused on destabilizing the Government with an unfounded political trial”.
embezzlement by omission
Lasso has accused the opposition of promoting “an alleged crime of embezzlement by omission that does not exist in our legislationwith which they want to ensure that I am politically responsible for not having acted in an alleged case of corruption”. According to the president, it is “a process without evidence, contradictory, confusing, illegal and illegitimate, it is the mechanism to dismiss the president”.
“The accusers they have become obsessed with ending my government driven by a superhuman rancor. However, they have been unable to find any evidence against me because there is nothing to find, absolutely nothing,” he stressed.
The president pointed out that he has made an effort “so that political dialogue is the tool that guarantees governability (…), but the attack on the management of this government has no limits.” As an example, he said that the opposition has activated 14 political trials of ministers “to generate instability in the cabinet and hinder the work of the Government.”
He considered that this is “a constant obstruction that has generated a serious political crisis and internal commotion, which is reflected in the almost zero confidence of Ecuadorian society in the Assembly.”
early elections
Lasso assured that, “in order to give a constitutional solution”, he decided to apply the article 148 of the Constitution of the Republic, which gives him the power to dissolve the National Assembly “due to a serious political crisis and internal commotion.” In addition, it has requested the National Electoral Council to immediately call legislative and presidential elections for the rest of the respective periods.
“This is a democratic decision, not only because it is constitutional, but because it returns to the Ecuadorian people the power to decide their future in the next election,” he added, indicating that this allows the Government to focus all its efforts on meeting the needs of the Ecuadorian family.
“Starting today, without blockades, the national government will issue a series of decree laws that will comply with the sovereignly expressed mandate,” he said, advancing that he has already signed the first decree law of economic urgency for reduce taxes and strengthen the economy.
Lasso stressed that public services will attend normally, that the Armed Forces and the National Police continue to guarantee security and that the private sector “has all the guarantees to carry out its activities and continue contributing to the growth and development of the country.”
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