Ecuador: Ecuador's opposition lawmakers have filed a formal impeachment request against President Guillermo Lasso, accusing him of extortion and embezzlement from public companies. An earlier attempt to impeach the conservative politician in June of last year failed due to the leader's refusal to negotiate with indigenous protesters.
The petition was signed by 59 assembly members from the Union for Hope (UNES), Social Christian, and Democratic Left parties and was presented on Thursday.
"The president is politically responsible for extortion and embezzlement crimes," said Viviana Veloz of former President Rafael Correa's UNES party during the National Assembly session. "In this accusation, it will be demonstrated how President Guillermo Lasso Mendoza participated in a corrupt structure to obtain benefits for himself and others."
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If the impeachment process reaches the final stage, it must be approved by 92 of the Assembly's 137 members, and the court system must also establish "judicial responsibility" to remove Lasso. Veloz stated that she was confident in legislative support due to "abundant" evidence to back up her claims.
The impeachment attempt by the Assembly has been rejected by Lasso's government as a "destabilisation" attempt. "This request is completely devoid of the political and legal elements necessary to support a process against the president," the administration stated.
The legislature declassified a slew of documents related to investigations into corruption at public companies earlier this week, attempting to build a case for impeaching Lasso, though the names of the president and his family reportedly did not appear in the documents.
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Earlier this month, the Assembly approved a report accusing Lasso of bribing his way into positions with state companies and favourable contracts. According to the report, he may have committed crimes against state security and the public administration. The report was dismissed by Lasso's office as "an attack on reason,” arguing it lacked “legal and binding validity.”
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Despite the fact that a two-month investigation earlier this year found no link between Lasso and an alleged bribery scheme involving the Albanian mafia, Ecuador's public electric utility, and Lasso's brother-in-law, opposition lawmakers have moved forward with impeachment efforts.
Lasso, a former banker, defeated leftist rival Andrez Arauz in the presidential election of 2021. A former Correa protégé, Arauz ran on a promise to end IMF-mandated austerity programmes and reverse the neoliberal reforms enacted by Correa's hand-picked successor, Lenin Moreno. While Moreno began his presidency as a leftist, following in the footsteps of his mentor, his subsequent hard right sent his popularity plummeting into the single digits, and he chose not to run for reelection.