QUITO.- The Mexican government granted political asylum to former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas (2013-2018) on Friday.convicted of two cases of corruption and with a pending investigation, after Ecuador expelled the Mexican ambassador following controversial statements by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador about the last Ecuadorian presidential elections.
In a statement, the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that its decision to grant asylum to Glas – who had been taking refuge in that diplomatic headquarters since mid-December – “must be respected by the territorial State” of Ecuador, which in turn time is “obliged to immediately give the corresponding safe conduct.”
In fact, when announcing the asylum, the Mexican Foreign Ministry denounced in a statement that its embassy in Quito suffers a “clear harassment” due to the deployment of police and military in its surroundings since Thursday.
In turn, the Mexican Foreign Ministry considered the expulsion of ambassador Raquel Serur Smekewho according to Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld has 72 hours to leave the country.
Serur, who was declared “persona non grata” by Ecuador, will be evacuated on a Mexican military plane and a delegation will be in charge of the embassy.
The conflict between both countries broke out after López Obrador maintained on Wednesday that the assassination of the Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio days before the first electoral round in August 2023 influenced voting trends in the October elections that the current president won Daniel Noboa.
“There were elections in Ecuador; The candidate of the progressive forces was about 10 points ahead” and “then, a candidate who speaks badly of the candidate who is at the top is assassinated and the candidate who was at the top falls and the candidate who was in second rises.”stated the Mexican president, in reference to Luisa González, from the Citizen Revolution party of the former Ecuadorian president. Rafael Correa (2007-2017).
“She remains a suspect after this murder, she continues campaigning in, I consider, very difficult circumstances,” said the Mexican president.
González was the candidate of the Citizen Revolution, after former Vice President Glas declined to be the presidential card of that political organization.
Noboa, who was not initially among those with the most options in the polls, was the winner of the October second round.
Precisely, one of the last episodes of tension between both countries occurred due to the presence in the Mexican embassy of former Vice President Glas, who has two convictions – one for bribery and another for the Odebrecht case – as well as a current arrest warrant. to be prosecuted in an investigation into corruption in the contracting of recovery works from the April 2016 earthquake.
The Noboa government, in power since November 23 of last year, had asked the diplomatic mission for authorization for the police to enter to arrest Glas, an intervention that was rejected by Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena.
When justifying the expulsion of the Mexican ambassador, the Ecuadorian chancellor considered that López Obrador’s statements “they offend the Ecuadorian State, the Ecuadorians.”
The expulsion of the Mexican ambassador “It deteriorates the diplomatic relationship, because we are demonstrating dissatisfaction with interference in internal politics”said Daniel Crespo, professor and international analyst at the University of San Francisco, and warned that it is very likely that Mexico will do the same “out of diplomatic reciprocity.”
He added that “daily and commercial activities will not be greatly affected” but that political conversations – for example about the irregular migration of Ecuadorians passing through Mexico to the United States -, “They will surely be interrupted.”
He added that the Ecuadorian reaction was unnecessarily strong “because it took the harshest measure taken in this type of situation,” without first going through, for example, sending a note of protest.
Amanda Villavicencio, one of the daughters of the murdered Ecuadorian candidate, reacted with indignation on her X account, formerly Twitter. “Wash your mouth López Obrador before talking about my father. Fernando Villavicencio was murdered by the gangsters that he always investigated. “Some of them asylum in your embassies and in your country.”he claimed.
For the former diplomat and professor at the Ecotec Technological University, Carlos Estarellas, Ecuador’s decision was “correct” because it “respects sovereignty” and the fundamental principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other States.
According to the expert, “Mexico had already been demonstrating an irregular relationship with Ecuador” by accepting as refugees “people from the Correa government who committed common crimes” like Glas.
On Friday, the Mexican embassy, located in the north of Quito, appeared relatively normal and with normal police guard to prevent Glas from escaping from that mission.
Mexico rejected the increase in the presence of Ecuadorian police forces outside its diplomatic headquarters and maintained that “it constitutes clear harassment of its embassy and a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.”
AP and AFP Agencies