Ecuador’s president, a U.S. ally, is facing impeachment. But some of his accusers are hypocritical | Opinion

Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso, one of United States’ few close allies in Latin America, is fighting for his political life: The National Assembly, controlled by the opposition, has started the process to impeach him on charges of alleged corruption, and a vote to oust him could take place as early as next month.

But in an extended interview on Tuesday, Lasso told me he plans to fight back. While conceding that his congressional bloc has only 25 legislators in the 137-seat Assembly, he said that he will prove his innocence — and expose his accusers.

Lasso told me that he will denounce before the National Assembly some of the legislators who are seeking his impeachment, saying they are tied to groups that profit from drug trafficking and corruption. He left open the possibility of invoking a so-called “mutual death” constitutional clause that would let him close down Congress and convene early elections, in which Ecuadoreans would have to vote for both president and a new Congress.

“What’s happening in Ecuador is that democracy, the institution of the presidency and the government are under attack by an opposition that doesn’t want to recognize my government’s successes,” Lasso told me. ”They want me out because I’m uncomfortable to many of them, because of my frontal fight against drug trafficking and the different groups that are used to making money from corruption-ridden deals with the state.”

Popularity dips

Lasso, whose popularity rates have plunged and who in February lost a referendum that he had proposed in hopes of getting support for his policies, is being accused by opposition legislators in connection with contracts of the FLOPEC state oil company with a private firm that provides shipping services.

Lasso said that the two government contracts being investigated by the Assembly were signed before his term. One of the contracts was signed in December 2018 and the second one in December 2020, before he took office in May, 2021, he said.

Most of the legislators demanding Lasso’s impeachment are members of a party led by former leftist populist president Rafael Correa, who ruled at the height of the oil-price bonanza between 2007 and 2017. Correa has since been convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison on corruption charges, in part linked to the Odebrecht bribery scandal, and has fled the country.

“At the end of the day, what’s happening in Ecuador is a debate between two models: a populist and totalitarian one, which we Ecuadoreans know from the 2007-2017 period, and another model that is represented by my government, which is a democratic, pro-freedom and humanist model,” Lasso told me.

Soaring crime

Lasso’s low popularity is largely because of most Ecuadoreans’ outrage over rising crime rates. According to Insight Crime, a U.S. think tank, Ecuador’ s homicide rate soared by 86% last year. Ecuador’s Primicias digital news magazine cited police data showing that the country’s homicide rate reached a historic record high last year, and that Ecuador has the most rapidly growing homicide rate in Latin America.

Lasso says the reason for the rising violence is that his government has confiscated 400 tons of drugs, compared with an average of 30 tons by previous governments. That has caused a war within drug gangs for a dwindling supply of drugs, which is driving up homicide rates, he says.

I won’t opine on Lasso’s guilty or innocence of the charges opposition legislators are leveling against him. I don’t have enough information about them yet. Ecuador’s lawmakers will have to decide that. If there are merits for an investigation, it should proceed.

But I see the blatant hypocrisy of members of Correa’s congressional bloc; they are seeking to impeach Lasso, while failing to denounce their own party boss. Lasso has not been found guilty by any court of law, while Correa has been sentenced to prison on massive corruption charges that were upheld by Ecuador’s Supreme Court.

If irregularities are found to have occurred during Lasso’s term, he should be charged accordingly; and if he’s proven guilty, he should be impeached. But for Correa-backed legislators seeking Lasso’s impeachment to be more credible, they should start by denouncing their own convicted party leader. Otherwise, it’s hard to take them seriously.

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