The President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, threatened with impeachment proceedings, decreed the dissolution of Parliament on Wednesday, leading to early elections on the grounds of a “serious political crisis”, announced the presidency.
The conservative head of state, targeted by a dismissal trial opened by parliamentarians on Tuesday, decided to “dissolve the National Assembly because of the serious political crisis and internal unrest”, according to the press release issued by his services.
Mr. Lasso is accused by the left, the majority in this single-chamber parliament, of embezzlement in the context of a public contract for the transport of crude oil. He pleaded on Tuesday for his “total, obvious and indisputable innocence” in the face of the deputies of a country plagued by political quarrels and violence.
He asked the National Electoral Council (CNE) to call early elections.
The Constitution provides that the electoral body convenes, within a maximum period of seven days after the publication of the decree of dissolution, the legislative and presidential elections, to complete the current four-year term.
“It is a democratic decision not only because it is constitutional, but also because it gives the Ecuadorian people the possibility to decide,” said Guillermo Lasso on the national television channel.
He will be able to govern until the installation of the new National Assembly by adopting decree-laws of economic emergency, but after favorable opinion of the Constitutional Court.
This is the first time that a head of state has used this right of dissolution, a provision which can only be activated once during the first three years of the mandate.
In June, MPs tried to impeach Guillermo Lasso amid violent indigenous protests against the rising cost of living, but they lacked 12 votes to succeed.