The assembly members maintain that the 67-year-old president was in charge of “protecting the links of a criminal structure in public companies.”
The Constitutional Court of Ecuador gave the green light to a request from Congress to initiate a process of impeachment against President Guillermo Lasso for the alleged crime of embezzlement.
With six votes in favor and three against, the highest court resolved “to admit the accusation of impeachment related to the alleged crime of embezzlement” against the conservative president, the Court said in a statement released late on Wednesday.
The magistrates rejected another cause that the National Assembly had raised for the alleged crime of concussion.
After evaluating the trial request, the Constitutional Court considered that in the request “the principles of political legitimacy and due process have been respected”for which it gave the green light to the Legislature.
The president must present evidence in his defense. during the trial that follows.
Congress, with an opposition majority although dispersed, returned to the charge against Lasso after the publication of a report by the digital medium La Posta, which revealed a alleged structure of corruption deployed for the assignment of public positions in state companies in charge of Danilo Carrera, a brother-in-law of Lasso without positions in the Government.
Also involved in the case are Hernán Luque, former delegate of the president on the board of the Public Companies Coordinating Company (EMCO), and businessman Rubén Cherres, close to Carrera and who is being investigated by the Prosecutor for drug trafficking.
Lasso, who assumed the presidency in May 2021, denies the accusations and accuses Congress of trying to “destabilize” his unpopular government.
Lasso, who assumed the presidency in May 2021, denies the accusations and accuses Congress of trying to “destabilize” his unpopular government.
Although it rejected the Court’s ruling, the Government said it respects it.
“This decision in no way validates the arguments raised by the legislature against the president,” said the Government’s General Secretariat for Communication in a statement, the AFP news agency reported.
Beset by a powerful indigenous movement and massive protests, three presidents were overthrown in Ecuador between 1997 and 2005.
The specter of ungovernability haunts the country again, where the president has faced violent demonstrations against the high cost of living.
Lasso already survived last June an attempt by the Legislature to dismiss him in the midst of the mobilizations.
On that occasion the deputies did not gather the necessary votes. To remove a president, a vote of two thirds of the assembly members is required. (92 out of 137).
“Lasso will be politically prosecuted and will have to answer for his horrors and incompetence before the Assembly,” Viviana Veloz, a deputy for former President Rafael Correa’s UNES party, said on Twitter and one of the 58 members of the assembly who presented the request for impeachment.
The @CorteConstEcu has pronounced. Lasso will be impeached politically and will have to answer for his horrors and incompetence before the Assembly. We could not turn our backs on the Ecuadorian people. This is for you! The bench @BancadaUNESec will never abandon them! pic.twitter.com/9UPW1RwZaK
— Viviana Veloz (@VivianaVeloz18) March 30, 2023
The assembly members maintain that the 67-year-old president was in charge of “protecting the links of a criminal structure in public companies.”
The Executive maintained that the request of the assembly members has “innumerable errors” and that “it never had and will never have any legal or political support.”
If Lasso, a former banker, were to be removed, he would be succeeded by Vice President Alfredo Borrero.
