(Quito) The Ecuadorian parliament on Tuesday approved the holding of a trial for the impeachment of President Guillermo Lasso for alleged corruption, the second attempt in less than a year to remove the conservative head of state from office.
With 88 votes out of the 116 deputies present in session, the National Assembly, dominated by the left-wing opposition, gave the green light to the impeachment trial before the parliamentarians of Mr. Lasso, accused of alleged embezzlement in the context of a state contract for the transportation of crude oil.
Twenty-three deputies voted against this lawsuit, five others abstained.
At the end of the session, which lasted more than five hours, applause, cheers and cries of “out Lasso” rang out in the plenary of the unicameral parliament with 137 seats.
The opposition, favorable to former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017), accuses Mr. Lasso of alleged embezzlement in the management of the public company FLOPEC (Flota Petrolera Ecuatoriana) through contracts signed between 2018 and 2020 with the international group Amazonas Tanker, involving Russian interests.
These agreements would have been detrimental to the interests of the State, leading in particular to losses of more than six million dollars for the Ecuadorian company.
The deputies had already tried in June 2022 to impeach Mr. Lasso. But the opposition, divided, had failed to gather enough votes.
Faced with this second attempt, President Lasso, 67, has already declared that he will attend the trial, approved by the Constitutional Court, judging his “duty to appear before the people”.
However, he warned that it was in his power, constitutionally, to dissolve parliament and call early general elections.
Earlier, the Ministry of Government Affairs deemed the legislative process “invalid”, saying the parliamentary committee responsible for the procedure was unable to approve a recommendation on whether or not to continue the trial last Saturday.
Also according to the Minister of Government Affairs, Henry Cucalon, it was not possible to prove that the president had committed embezzlement.
If impeached, Mr Lasso would become the second Ecuadorian president to be removed from office by impeachment in 90 years. In 1933, Juan de Dios Martinez (1932-1933) was dismissed by this same parliamentary mechanism.
The dismissal of a president requires the approval of at least two-thirds of parliamentarians, or 92 deputies out of 137. No date has yet been set for the debates or the vote, while the Assembly renews its president and his two vice-presidents.