Ecuador’s National Assembly removes its president from office

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Tuesday, May 31, Ecuador’s National Assembly (Parliament) dismissed its president, Guadalupe Llori -the first indigenous woman to reach that position- who has been accused of failing to fulfill her functions and allowing the discrediting of the chamber.

With 81 votes in favor – out of 82 present – and 56 absent, the plenary of the Assembly accepted a report prepared by a special commission that investigated Llori’s management and alleged: “non-compliance with her functions as first authority” of the Legislative.

It also recommended the dismissal of Llori -from the indigenous and plurinational Pachakutik movement- accused of “conducts that threaten the institutionality, the image and the normal development of the Assembly”.

The Legislature also appointed as Llori’s substitute the second vice-president of the Chamber, Virgilio Saquicela, who presided over the session in the absence of the incumbent, who did not arrive at the plenary even though the session was suspended for an hour to allow her to be present and exercise her right to defense.

Llori’s dismissal had the support of legislators of the UNES Movement (sympathetic to former President Rafael Correa), the conservative Social Christian Party (PSC), and dissidents of the social democratic Democratic Left (ID) and Pachakutik (PK), the latter divided into factions that support and reject the dismissed.

The members of the pro-government CREO movement, led by the center-right leader Guillermo Lasso – who has actively supported Llori – did not attend the plenary session.

The new president of the Assembly, Virgilio Saquicela, called this Wednesday to resume the legislative work and called for this State function’s institutionalism to be respected. “The country is interested in pragmatism; our work is to legislate and supervise,” remarked Saquicela.

The dismissed president of the Assembly, who had filed several legal appeals to prevent her dismissal from being processed, has not pronounced herself on the process against her.

Llori, who represents the Amazonian province of Orellana, was appointed as president of the Assembly on May 15, 2021. Since then, she has supported Lasso’s administration, which has generated problems in her own Pachakutik parliamentary group, now divided into two antagonistic factions.

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