Split erupts in Ecuador's leadership.
| Autor | Saavedra, Luis Angel |
Every political analyst in Ecuador expected a clash between President Lenrn Moreno and his vice president, Jorge Glas, but they didn't expect that it would happen just 40 days into the administration or that the vice president would be stripped of all of his responsibilities. The opposition has fingered Glas as a beneficiary of several corruption cases brought before the Supreme Court by Ecuador's attorney general (NotiSur, July 14, 2017).
Glas has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He asserts that a plot is being built to remove him from office and usher in a right-wing agenda, thus dismantling the gains achieved during the 10 years of President Rafael Correa's administration (2007-2017).
Corruption as a breaking point
Glas, who served as vice president under Correa between 2013 and 2017, was the ideal candidate to continue Correa's political project, but he lacked the votes needed to win the recent presidential contest. Moreno, on the other hand, didn't have Correa's blessing but had far greater voter support than Glas, making their alliance the only possibility the ruling Alianza Pais (AP) had for a victory.
Fractures inside the AP were temporarily resolved with the Moreno-Glas formula, although it is believed that Moreno was forced to accept Glas as a running mate. In the second round of voting, Glas was kept away from campaign events because he had begun to be tied to acts of corruption, particularly with a network of the Brazilian firm Odebrecht that had paid more than US$33.5 million in bribes to Ecuadoran officials, according to a US Department of Justice investigation published on Dec. 21, 2016. The bribes were later confirmed by former Odebrecht officers who agreed to collaborate with the justice departments of the countries in which they had acted illegally over a 20-year period (NotiSur, Feb. 24, 2017, and May 26, 2017).
In Ecuador, bribes were allegedly made between 2007 and 2016, during the decade in which Correa governed with Moreno, and then Glas, as vice president.
The Moreno-Glas partnership won with less than a two-point difference over the right-wing candidate, Guillermo Lasso, on April 2 (NotiSur, Nov. 11, 2016, March 10, 2017, April 21, 2017). Moreno then began a process of legitimizing his mandate by opening dialogues with different political sectors, both on the left and the right. Correa sent messages criticizing Moreno's actions from Belgium, where he is now living. The messages were considered a call to action for...
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