What is the “cross death” invoked by President Lasso in Ecuador and what happens now

2023-05-18 06:29:32

May 17, 2023, 10:29 PM

Ecuador is experiencing critical days: just one day after a political trial began against him, the country’s president, Guillermo Lasso, decided this Wednesday to dissolve Congress and request the calling of general elections.

Lasso was, according to several analysts, “between a rock and a hard place,” after beginning Tuesday a political trial against him in the opposition-majority National Assembly led by Union for Hope (UNES), the left-wing party. of former President Rafael Correa, an asylum seeker in Belgium as he has pending convictions for corruption in Ecuador.

The opposition accused Lasso of embezzlement (embezzlement), for not terminating a contract between the Ecuadorian Oil Fleet (Flopec) and the Amazonas Tankers consortium for the transportation of petroleum derivatives, which allegedly caused serious economic damage to state coffers.

The “cross death”

Thus, the Assembly began a plenary session this Tuesday on the possible removal of the president, which was to be put to a vote in the coming days.

But this Wednesday Lasso signed the decree to dissolve the Assembly, in based on the so-called “cross death”.

It is the first time that this figure has been applied in Ecuador, included in the 2008 Constitution – which was promulgated during the term of former President Rafael Correa – and protected by the Organic Law of the Legislative Function.

The keys to the process to come

• Following Lasso’s announcement, the National Electoral Council (CNE) has up to seven days to call elections.
• These new presidential and legislative elections must be held within a maximum period of 90 days after being called. Lasso can stand as a candidate.
• The CNE must officially proclaim the results of the elections within a maximum period of seven days after the vote.
• If no presidential candidacy achieved an absolute majority of valid votes cast, a second round will be called to be held within 45 days of the proclamation of results.
• After the votes, the CNE will have a maximum period of seven days to announce the electoral results.
• The inauguration of the winners must occur within the following 15 days from the proclamation of the results.
• The new authorities will occupy their positions only until 2025, when the current constitutional period (2021-2025) ends and new elections must be called.
• The “cross death” mechanism may not be invoked again for the remainder of the constitutional period.

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The military was deployed in the National Assembly after Lasso’s announcement.

“Cross death” allows the head of state to dissolve the National Assembly if he feels it is impeding his ability to govern.

The law specifies that the National Electoral Council (CNE) must call elections presidential and legislative within a maximum period of seven days since he decreed it.

The first round of these elections “They will be carried out within a maximum period of ninety days after the call“, according to article 50 of the Organic Law of the Legislative Function, and the public representatives elected therein will remain until the end of the legislature in 2025, when the next regular elections are scheduled.

Lasso can stand as a candidate in early elections, risking losing power before the official end of his term in 2025.

This is where the expression “cross death” comes from, since both the president and the National Assembly can lose their powers by decreeing it.

From now on and for a maximum period of 6 months, Lasso can rule by decree.

The president justified his decision by accusing opponents of “put Ecuadorian democracy in check” through a “destabilization” strategy, and promised to return “to the Ecuadorian people” the power to “decide their future in the next elections.”

What is Lasso looking for?

In order to maintain power, Lasso would only have needed in the political trial that a third of the 137 congressmen of the Assembly reject his dismissal, but he finally decided not to wait for the vote and decree the cross death. Because?

“I think he was lost, he was unable to negotiate the necessary votes. His strategy is to be able to govern through decrees, since the current outlook was not favorable to him,” Ecuadorian political scientist and researcher Koya Shugulí told BBC Mundo.

According to experts, Lasso’s room for maneuver is very narrow, since he only has a few months left to govern through decree-laws at a time when his popularity is at minimum levelspartly due to the crisis of insecurity and violence that the country is experiencing without the government having been able to provide solutions, which could portend a defeat in early elections.

“It is a sensitive move and it would lead the president to political suicide,” journalist Arturo Torres had told BBC Mundo before Lasso signed the decree and activated the “cross death.”

Reuters

In recent months, Ecuador has been rocked by protests and massive strikes.

Torres considered, in fact, that the decision made this Wednesday by the president opens a more favorable scenario for correistas(Sympathizers of former President Correa), that they were the big winners of the recent sectional elections in February, in which the electorate harshly punished Lasso’s management.

“This envisions the anticipated return of correísmo,” Shugulí predicts.

Cross death can also generate another serious problem for the Lasso executive and the country in general: a wave of protests with unforeseeable consequences.

Indigenous movements have already warned of mobilizations if this were to happen, and other political and social groups could join.

At the moment, the Armed Forces have been deployed to face possible mobilizations in key points in Quito, such as the Carondelet Palace, the Legislative Palace and the Ministry of Defense, and the closure of several roads in the capital has been decreed.

“It is a conflictive scenario that is not going to solve, but rather worsen, the problems of ordinary people,” said journalist Arturo Torres.