The President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, decreed, while facing a political trial against him, the so-called “cross death”, which dissolves the National Assembly, which has an opposition majority, and calls early general elections, so that he will govern for through decrees until there is a successor.
Lasso announced the measure written in the Constitution of Ecuador in 2008 due to “serious internal and political commotion”, after having appeared before the Assembly on Tuesday to offer his defense arguments against the accusation made by the opposition for a crime of embezzlement.
The Ecuadorian executive resorted to the “cross death” before beginning the second day of debate that was to be held in the Chamber to later vote on the motion of no confidence, in which 92 votes are required to remove him, which would be equivalent to two thirds of parliament.
“Getting out of the serious political crisis”
“Ecuador needs a new political and social pact that allows it to get out of the serious political crisis in which it finds itself and which, unfortunately, deepens every day,” Lasso said at the beginning of his message to the nation.
Likewise, he said that the solution must put an end to “an irrational and useless confrontation” and indicated that it is not possible to continue and face the profound challenges “to which insecurity and terrorism submit us with an Assembly whose political project is the destabilization of the Government, democracy and the State”.
He also explained that in the last two years, “a sector of national politics has tried to overthrow the democratically elected government.”
The president added that the destabilizing project “leveled up with the blocking of the legislative initiatives presented by the Executive” and “all the efforts of the legislature are focused on destabilizing the Government with an unfounded political trial.”
“They promote an alleged crime of embezzlement by omission that does not exist in our legislation, with which they want to ensure that I am politically responsible for not having acted in an alleged case of corruption,” he said about the opposition accusation.
For Lasso, this is “a process without evidence, contradictory, confusing, illegal and illegitimate, it is the mechanism to remove the president.”
He also stressed that “the accusers have become obsessed with ending my government driven by superhuman rancor. However, they have been unable to find any evidence against me because there is absolutely nothing to find.”
The Guayaquil president pointed out that he has made an effort “so that political dialogue is the tool that guarantees governability (…) but the attack on the management of this Government has no limits.”
As an example, he declared that the opposition has activated 14 political trials of ministers “to generate instability in the cabinet and hinder the work of the Government.”
Lasso considered that this is “a constant obstruction that has generated a serious political crisis and internal commotion, which is reflected in the almost zero confidence of Ecuadorian society in the Assembly.”
signature of the decree
The Ecuadorian executive stated that “in order to provide a constitutional solution” he decided to apply article 148 of the Constitution of the Republic, which grants him the power to dissolve the National Assembly “due to a serious political crisis and internal commotion.”
Also, he asked the National Electoral Council of the country to immediately call legislative and presidential elections for the other periods.
“This is a democratic decision, not only because it is constitutional, but because it returns to the Ecuadorian people the power to decide their future in the next election,” he added while pointing out that this allows the Government to focus all its efforts on addressing the needs of the Ecuadorian family.
“Starting today, without blockades, the national government will issue a series of decree laws that will comply with the sovereignly expressed mandate,” he said when advancing that he has already signed the first decree law of economic urgency to reduce taxes and strengthen the economy.
President Lasso stressed that public services will attend to normality, that the Armed Forces and the National Police continue to guarantee security and that the private sector “has all the guarantees to carry out its activities and continue contributing to the growth and development of the country.”
With information from EFE
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