Quito, (EFE)
In a message to the nation where he appeared with his wife, María de Lourdes Alcívar, and in front of a large group of citizens with the Ecuadorian flag in the background, Lasso accused the opposition, led by Correísmo, of inventing evidence against him. to “seize power by storm and weaken and destroy democracy.”
Lasso’s pronouncement comes one day after the Constitutional Court gave the green light to carry out the impeachment trial for embezzlement, but did not accept the accusation that the opposition also made for accusation.
The Ecuadorian president argued that the Constitutional Court left out of the accusation the alleged crime of concussion for lack of evidence and that the charges for alleged embezzlement correspond to contracts signed in 2018 and renewed in 2020, before he became President in May 2021.
“They allegedly accuse me of abusing public funds for my own benefit when I was not yet President of the Republic. What do I have to do with a 2018 contract? There is not even an investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office on this issue,” argued the president.
“I have not committed any crime, much less years before taking office (as president), and since there are no grounds for a criminal trial, they invent this political trial,” he added.
Charge Against Opposition
The head of state pointed out to the drug trafficking mafias, the insurance of public companies, illegal mining and illegal oil businesses for having joined politics and being behind this political trial “to recover the illegal perks that we remove”.
He also recalled that he was democratically elected for four years and that “the cycles in democracy must be fulfilled.”
In this sense, it considered it critical that, for this political trial, “evidence obtained fraudulently, violations of due process, use of the wrong articles and obtaining illegal evidence” have been presented.
For Lasso this is “a trial created with false ‘memes'”, which “has neither head nor tail, because the invented lies cannot be sustained”, and which is “a desperate, timeless and violent attempt to steal” stability from the country.
The President of the Republic of Ecuador Guillermo Lasso arrival today, at the Metropolitan Cultural Center, in Quito (Ecuador).
“It bothers me, it offends me, it outrages me that they are trying to assassinate my reputation and that of my home,” added the ruler before reiterating that he is “innocent of those hoaxes” that have been “invented” for him.
Assassination of your reputation
The president affirmed that he is experiencing “a systematic and mafia attack” to “assassinate” his reputation, but culminated: “this is a fight that we are going to win because the truth always wins.”
The impeachment process against Lasso was activated by the opposition at the most difficult moment for the president, after the serious setback received in the electoral appointment of February 5, where he lost the referendum called to reform the Constitution and, at the same time, Correísmo was the big winner in the local elections.
Now the Assembly, with an opposition majority, will refer to the Oversight Commission the preparation of a report with the elements presented by the prosecution and the allegations of the defense. The document will be raised to the plenary session, where 92 votes are needed to censure the head of state, equivalent to two thirds of the Chamber.
In June 2022, Lasso already saved a similar situation by a few votes, when in the midst of the protests led by the indigenous movement against the economic policy of his Government and the high cost of living, the opposition raised a motion for presidential impeachment that did not reached those 92 votes.