One day after dissolving the National Assembly, avoiding his impending impeachment but sparking new elections this year, Ecuador’s president Guillermo Lasso said has no plans to apply in them, and that he doesn’t care who replaces him.
“My goal is not to prevent someone from returning to Ecuador”, he told The Washington Post in an interview on Thursday night. He was referring to the party of his leftist rival Rafael Correathe country’s longest-serving democratically elected president and still an influential leader here.
Instead, he told The Postplans to use his final months as one of the few remaining center-right presidents in Latin America to promote executive orders focused on security, health, education and infrastructure. Among them: a decree, to be announced next week, that would increase protections for security forces who use their weapons to defend themselves and others.
The 67-year-old former banker took this South American nation of 18 million into new territory this week with his statement Wednesday of a death crossmore or less, “mutual death”. The constitutional measure, which he invoked days before the legislature voted to remove him on embezzlement charges, allows you to send legislators home and rule by decree for up to six months. So we have to celebrate new elections.
Lasso rejects the charges against him as politically motivated; supporters call them fake. He is the first Ecuadorian president to invoke the death crosswhich effectively halves his four-year term. He was added to the constitution when Correa was president.
Some saw the move as a last-minute effort to avoid a impeachment, a calculation that the votes were against him in impeachment. But Lasso told The Post what he had decided on the cross death days before and followed her after making sure she had the support of the military.
Police around the National Assembly in Quito (REUTERS/Cristina Vega)
Intelligence authorities said the president had received information that the opposition lacked the votes to remove him. But Lasso, fed up with an opposition-led assembly that has managed to block most of his agenda, decided to dissolve it anyway. He applied the measure, he wrote in his statement, to deal with the “serious political crisis” in an assembly whose members were unable to adequately perform their duties.
“The fundamental thing was to find a way out of this political crisis.Lasso told The Post. He called the move a “act of generosity for the countryto shorten a presidential term to achieve the common interest of Ecuadorians… and not see this embarrassing spectacle of fights between politicians”.
Ecuador’s Constitutional Court confirmed Lasso’s statement on Thursday, rejecting six lawsuits aimed at blocking it. The electoral court said it would hold early legislative and presidential elections on August 20th, with a possible second round in the October presidential elections. Lasso said his party plans to nominate a candidate.
Speaking in a wood-paneled room of the presidential palace after the most chaotic day in Ecuadorian politics in years, the president was remarkably relaxed and optimistic with a jacket, a sweater and jeans. He tried to downplay concerns that the coming months could bring mass protests, or that his left-wing opponents could win elections and punish him.
He had said before his impeachment trial began Tuesday that he would declare a cross death if he believed lawmakers had the votes to remove him. Leaders of Ecuador’s powerful indigenous movement, credited with playing a key role in the ouster of three previous presidents, said they would respond to the move by organizing street demonstrations. But by Thursday night, there had been no substantial protests. And Correa, who on Wednesday called Lasso’s move unconstitutional, appeared to be trying to capitalize on it on Thursday.
“Did you know? Despite his lies and contradictions, Lasso is right: we are experiencing an internal commotion, ”the former president tweeted on Thursday. “Let’s go to those elections and sweep them at the ballot box”.
Simon Pachano, a political scientist at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Ecuador, argued that Lasso made the decision mainly to avoid impeachment. He rejected the president’s claims that he simply isn’t interested in running for office again.
A person with Ecuadorian flags after Lasso’s decision (REUTERS / Cristina Vega)
“It seems to me that he has no chance of winningPachano said, and Lasso knows it. “I think he’s kind of a skilled poker player. never shows emotions”.
Elected in 2021, Lasso was to have served until 2025, when he would have been eligible to run for a term longer than four years.
He said he received the support on Wednesday various foreign allies, including the United States. Following his statement, the US ambassador Michael J. Fitzpatrick said that the United Statesrespects the internal and constitutional processes of Ecuador” y “will continue to work with the constitutional government, civil society, the private sector and the Ecuadorian people”.
Lasso rejected the idea that Ecuador is the last Latin American country to experience a democratic setback. But it’s hard to ignore several recent incidents in the region.From Brazil, where supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the capital in January in an effort to reverse their electoral defeat, to El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele suspended key civil liberties to crack down on gangs, to Guatemala , which has scared off anti-corruption prosecutors and managed to shut down an investigative newspaper this week.
Pedro Castillo of Peru, which was facing impeachment in December, tried to dissolve that country’s legislature and rule by decree, but lacked the constitutional authority or political support to succeed. He was removed from his post and arrested that day.
The crises in Peru and Ecuador, although they developed in very different contexts, show a break in political representationsaid Alberto Vergara, political scientist from the Universidad del Pacífico in Peru. Both countries have suffered dramatic fragmentation in political parties, producing legislatures that have proven unwieldy and unpredictable.
But Ecuador’s crisis extends well beyond its national assembly. Once seen as relatively peaceful compared to its neighbors, the country is now suffering from a spiral of drug trafficking and gang violence.
Lasso has declared a state of emergency in various parts of the country, sometimes echoing Bukele’s strategy in El Salvador. In April, Lasso allowed civilians to keep and carry weapons for self-defense.
And the next week, he told The Postplans to pass an executive order to give “more confidence, peace of mind and security to our law enforcement, so they can use their gifted weapons to protect innocent citizens and themselves.”
Lasso said it was not easy to shorten his presidency. But he is convinced that his successors, if faced with a similar political crisis, should not be afraid to do the same.
“I would recommend it to any future president of Ecuador,” he said.