Calay News
Ecuador’s conservative president, Guillermo Lasso, has tested positive for COVID-19 and will undergo medical isolation while continuing to work remotely, according to the General Secretariat of Communication.
Despite his diagnosis, the president “is in good health and, according to medical indications, will serve four days of isolation.” The news of Lasso’s contagion comes at a delicate moment for his administration, as he faces a possible impeachment trial by the parliamentary opposition due to an alleged corruption scheme in public companies involving people from his close circle.
The opposition announced that it will file a petition for impeachment in mid-March after the National Assembly approves a report recommending Lasso’s impeachment. One of the main people implicated in the corruption scheme is Danilo Carrera, the brother-in-law of the president and a businessman and banker. Another person involved is Ruben Cherres, another member close to the ruling party who was the subject of a police investigation for alleged links to drug trafficking in 2021 but which was shelved.
The government has dismissed the parliamentary report as “mamotreto” with no legal validity and said that the impeachment is a “real attack on reason and common sense.” To initiate the impeachment process, a petition with the signatures of 46 legislators is required, and then the Constitutional Court will evaluate whether the petition is formal and duly grounded.
