RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, has accused former president Rafael Correa of being behind an “institutional coup” attempt and has rejected the accusations made against him for his appearance in the so-called Pandora Papers.
In an interview granted to journalist Carlos Vera, Lasso has charged Correa, the former mayor of Guayaquil Jaime Nebot and the president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Leonidas Iza, whom he has described as “a triumvirate of conspiracy” trying to wear down his Executive.
“This conspiracy begins with Correa, continues with Nebot, and is followed by Iza, who are the three interested in carrying out an institutional coup in Ecuador,” he said while speaking of “concerted attacks” since September 18.
Thus, the accused Iza of “wanting to heat the streets” and stressed that “this trilogy coincides in one cause: to strike against democracy”. “Not through the typical military coup of the last century, but wanting to appeal to the Constitution because they have a majority of votes,” he explained.
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Lasso has affirmed that these criticisms have been directed against the government in the face of the “success” in the vaccination campaign, in which “nine million Ecuadorians have been vaccinated” during his first one hundred days at the head of the country.
“The triumvirate of the conspiracy came out just after one hundred days with an inverse, absurd logic, ‘how excellent the vaccination, but nothing else is going to be accomplished'”, he has related. “As they saw that we were efficient in the vaccination, they say ‘we cannot allow Lasso a success, we are going to block him,” he has argued.
“I have not come here to warm up a position or to be then placed here in this yellow room with a portrait,” he has stated. “I have come to defend the interests of the Ecuadorian people from those Mafiosi who want to appear as politicians and who, with as long as they have governed Ecuador, we have 34 percent poverty, barely three out of ten Ecuadorians have a formal job, chronic child malnutrition is the highest in the region,” he added.
Lasso has also linked the clashes between gangs registered at the end of September in prison in the Ecuadorian province of Guayas, which resulted in nearly 120 deaths, to this alleged “conspiracy”. “You see such a coincidence. The 100 days of government end, the triumvirate of the conspiracy begins, and then comes the penitentiary”, he pointed out.
“This is not a coincidence. The moment I have the evidence, which we are going to have, I will not make a public statement, I will go to the Prosecutor’s Office because they have to assume the responsibility of 118 lives of human beings who were serving their sentence and who do not have to be riddled with bullets”, he pointed out.
The president called Correa a “monster” and “untreatable” and asked to “leave him in the dustbin of history”. “Be clear that we are going to face these coup plotters who had shown us their great experience in coups d’état when they declared a president insane without having at least a document from a neighborhood psychiatrist,” he said.
“We have to face it with the decision, with fortitude, and with the clarity as I have spoken tonight to the Ecuadorian people. Always with God’s help, asking Him for blessings, even for the conspirators,” he said.
Likewise, he has criticized the National Assembly for its refusal to debate the bills presented by the government, among them the Law for the Creation of Opportunities. “It is not blocking the government, it is turning its back on six million Ecuadorians who are waiting for employment and an entire country that is looking for opportunities,” he has lamented.
PANDORA PAPERS
On the other hand, Lasso has once again responded to the criticism for the appearance of his name in the Pandora Papers and has called the international investigation an “international conspiracy”.
“The origin of my wealth comes from my private activity”, he has defended, before highlighting that during the last 15 years, he has paid “directly and indirectly” 588 million dollars in taxes, something that is verifiable given that “the information of the internal revenue service is public”.
“They did not do what they should have done, from my point of view,” said Lasso, who reiterated that the companies cited in the Pandora Papers “do not exist.” “They make a little square and say a lot of offshore companies that are not mine, that have nothing to do with me, that have never had anything to do with me. Taxes, zero. In Ecuador, 588 million,” he said.