Ecuador’s President Lasso drops out of August election

Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso said Friday he would not run in the snap election that began last month after facing impeachment charges.

“I will not accept the candidacy for the presidency of the republic in the elections to be held on August 20,” Lasso said in a speech on Friday afternoon outside the Carondelet Palace in Quito, surrounded by his family and cabinet.

Elections for the President and Congress are due to take place in August after Lasso activated the “mutual death” clause in the Constitution, dissolved Congress, and initiated elections for the President and Congress.

The millionaire was facing trial on charges of embezzlement in the opposition-controlled Congress. The charges related to contracts awarded to state-owned oil transportation company Flowpec in 2018, three years before he took office. Lasso has repeatedly denied the allegations and said they were politically motivated.

He was due to face trial in the National Assembly a few days after it was shut down.

“I didn’t do it to avoid a lawsuit, but to stop this terrible scheme of institutional grab that’s still going on today,” Lasso said in his speech on Friday.

The turmoil has hit investor confidence, with ratings agency Fitch last week changing its outlook for Ecuador from stable to negative, citing political instability.

If no candidate for president wins more than 50 percent of the vote in August, there will be a run-off on October 15.

Lasso will rule by decree until a new president is in office, overseen by the Constitutional Court. In a video message later posted on Twitter, he said he would use the next few months to lay out plans he had for the next two years.

Despite receiving praise for the country’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign and restructuring some of its debt to China, Lasso’s center-right administration faced hostility in Congress and a rise in drug-fuelled crime. Gaya who is set to dominate the campaign. Ahead.

The new president and parliamentarians will only serve for the remainder of Lasso’s current term until 2025, when another election will be held.

Sebastian Hurtado, head of Quito political risk consultancy Profitas, said Lasso’s decision did not put the “mutual death” declaration in a new light, noting that he could resign and allow his vice president, Alfredo Borrero, to see was out of range.

“I think two years of Borrero lame duck government was preferable to the disruption and instability that two years of consecutive elections are going to bring to Ecuador with all the economic ramifications.”