2023-05-15 05:01:00
He President of the National Assembly of Ecuador, Virgilio Saquicela, re-elected this Sunday in office for the period 2023-2025, called for this Tuesday to the first plenary session scheduled in the process against the president, Guillermo Lasso, for the alleged crime of embezzlement.
The first of the two days of the legislative plenary for this process will begin at 10 local time (12 in Argentina), to which the 137 members of the Ecuadorian legislative body were summoned. A source from the National Assembly confirmed that, according to the law, in a first session there will be a speech by the president and of the interpellants in addition to the reply and the debate. “The session is suspended for five days and then the vote begins,” said the same source.
Last Tuesday, the Ecuadorian Parliament approved with 88 votes to advance in a political trial against Lasso for embezzlement of public funds for a hydrocarbon transportation contract. The accusation against the former banker is for having allowed the maintenance of a million-dollar contract between the state oil transport company, Flopec, and the offshore company Amazonas Tanker Pool.
The continuity of the contract had caused damage to the State estimated at 6.1 million dollars, according to the State Comptroller General. Instead, The president’s defense maintains that the contracts were signed under the administration of former President Lenín Moreno and that under Lasso’s mandate, a review was requested from the Comptroller’s Office to renew them under the conditions and observations made by that body.
The current president will be sanctioned in the event that a minimum of 92 votes of the 137 members of Parliament are met and, in case of being dismissed, the vice president would assume the first magistracy until the year 2025.
opposition majority
The National Assembly met this Sunday to decide on the renewal of the authorities, since two years have passed since the installation of the current legislative period, so the law establishes that the assembly members had to decide whether to maintain or change their authorities. Although the ruling party announced that they were working on negotiations for a legislative agenda and to reappoint authorities, the opposition prevailed..
The vote of the seven authorities of the Assembly managed to show that they have more than the 92 votes they need to dismiss Lasso after the impeachment, reported the portal Primicias. In short, the Unión por la Esperanza correísta bench, the Christian Social Party and the opposition factions of the Democratic Left and Pachakutik managed to keep the seven elected spaces: the presidency, the two vice presidencies and the four members of the Legislative Administration Council.
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