President Guillermo Lasso dissolved Ecuador’s opposition-controlled National Assembly on May 17—just one day after his impeachment trial began. The impeachment proceedings are of course suspended, and Lasso is to rule by decree, subject to oversight only by the Constitutional Court, until new presidential and legislative elections are held. His office issued a communique asserting that Lasso acted under Article 148 of the Ecuadoran Constitution, which states: “The President of the Republic will be able to dissolve the National Assembly…if it repeatedly without justification obstructs implementation of the National Development Plan or because of a severe political crisis and domestic unrest.” The so-called “muerte cruzada” (mutual death) provision, introduced in 2008, has never been used in Ecuador before.
Lasso’s office claims that the move is “constitutional” and “democratic” because “it returns to the Ecuadoran people the power to decide their future in the next elections.”
However, the left-opposition Unión por la Esperanza (UNES) tweeted: “This desperate and unconstitutional action is the strategy of an irredeemable government that seeks to evade the vote to oust it, without regard for the people.” UNES leader and former president Rafael Correa tweeted: “What Lasso is doing is illegal…. He just couldn’t buy enough assembly members to save himself. In any case, it is a GREAT opportunity to get rid of Lasso, his government, and his rented assembly members, and reclaim the Fatherland.”
Leonidas Iza, leader of the powerful indigenous alliance CONAIE, tweeted that Lasso’s move was a “cowardly auto-golpe [self-coup] carried out with the aid of the Police and FFAA [armed forces].” He warned of an “imminent dictatorship.”
The Ecuadoran National Police and military immediately announced their support for Lasso’s move. Lawmakers reported that military forces surrounded the National Assembly building after the legislature was ordered dissolved.
Ecuador’s National Electoral Council is mandated to announce new elections within seven days of Lasso’s decree. The new polls are to be held within the next three months.
Ironically, the muerte cruzada provision was added to the country’s charter during the constitutional reform that Correa himself oversaw during his first term in office. Lasso also sought a reform of the constitution earlier this year—which, among other controversial measues, would have allowed permanent use of the armed forces in law enforcement in response to the crisis of crime and insecurity in the country. However, this met with opposition from both UNES and CONAIE, and the reform was rejected by the voters in the Feb. 5 poll. The military is already being used in ostensible anti-crime efforts under emergency decrees in place across much of the country. (Jurist, BBC News, Courthouse News Service, Amnesty International, BBC Mundo, Prensa Latina, El Comercio, Peru)
Corruption and crisis in oil sector
Lasso’s impeachment trial opened May 16. He stands accused of extortion and embezzlement related to alleged corruption at parastatal oil company Petroecuador and hydrocarbons transporter Ecuadoran Petrol Fleet (Flopec), allowing unprofitable contracts to benefit “third parties.” Lasso and his supporters deny the charges, saying that the National Assembly created a “fictitious situation.” Lasso pledged in April that he would dissolve the National Assembly if he were impeached. The president was also subjected to an impeachment vote in 2022, but it was defeated. (Jurist, BNAmericas)
Having had to shut down over 200 wells during the national protests in Ecuador last June, Petroecuador again declared force majeure at several oil blocs in the Amazon basin this March due to protests by impacted communities. On May 10, the company shut down the Trans-Ecuadoran Oil Pipeline System (SOTE) due to a rupture that it blamed on “sabotage.” The alleged attack took place at Santa Cecilia parish, Lago Agrio canton, Sucumbíos province. Sucumbíos, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, has been the scene of repeated protests against extractivist projects by local residents. It was one of several Ecuadoran provices placed under a state of emergency by Lasso last year in response to crime and insecurity. (BNAmericas, EFE, TeleSur)
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Ecuador: Manta mayor assassinated
Mayor Agustín Intriago of Manta, Ecuador’s third-largest city, was murdered while touring the Pacific port July 23. While the motive remains unclear, the killing comes amid a serious outbreak of violence that authorities attribute to disputes among organized crime groups. (PRI, BBC News)
Ecuador: state of emergency in two provinces
Ecuador’s government has declared a state of emergency in Manabi and Los Rios provinces after its security crisis escalated over the weekend with the killing of a mayor in Manabi’s principal city, Manta, and uprisings in several penitentiaries across the country. More than 90 guards are currently being held by inmates in five different prisons. (CNN)
Ecuador has been hard hit in recent months by Latin America’s prison crisis.
Presidential candidate assassinated in Ecuador
Fernando Villavicencio, a presidential candidate in Ecuador who had been outspoken about the link between organized crime and government officials was assassinated on Aug. 9 at a political rally in Quito, just days before an election that was expected to be dominated by concerns over drug-related violence. (NYT)
Ecuador: another politician assassinated
A local party leader has been killed in Ecuador, the second politician to be assassinated in the space of a week. Pedro Briones, a local leader of the left-wing Citizen Revolution Party, was shot dead by gunmen on a motorcycle at his home in northern Esmeraldas province. Fernando Villavicencio, the presidential candidate slain days earlier in Quito, had been an outspoken opponent of the Citizen Revolution Party and its exiled leader, former president Rafael Correa. (BBC News)