Declassified documents do not mention Ecuador’s Lasso -regulator
5:55 pm Wednesday, March 15th, 2023
By Alexandra Valencia
QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso and his family members do not appear in declassified documents released by the country’s companies regulator, the agency said on Wednesday, referring to files which opposition lawmakers had sought to shore up a possible impeachment bid.
Legislators voted on Tuesday to declassify the files, after earlier this month backing a report accusing Lasso of connections to possible crimes against state security and public administration.
Lasso has denied corruption allegations and said his government will fully cooperate with ongoing investigations by the attorney general into alleged graft at state companies.
“If what you want to know is whether the name of the president or any relative is on the list … they really were not found on any of the lists,” companies superintendent Marco Lopez told local television.
Some lawmakers have alleged that Albanian businesses operating in Ecuador could have criminal connections, but Lopez said that though the regulator is analyzing whether the presence of Albanian citizens represents any risk, he cannot be sure any crimes have been committed.
Though the assembly backed the nonbinding report accusing Lasso of wrongdoing, the opposition is still examining which charges it wants to bring against him and has not yet formally requested impeachment hearings.
“There is not one single clue or document that involved Mr. Guillermo Lasso in what was just declassified from the Superintendency of Companies,” Pachakutik party legislator Ricardo Vanegas told journalists. “What value could a trial have if there is no connection.”
“They are looking for ways to tie this soap opera to a reason to remove President Lasso,” he said.
Opposition politicians were unperturbed.
“The only truth is that we have a drug trafficking government that is protecting mobsters and which allowed a criminal structure to install itself in public companies,” said lawmaker Viviana Veloz, a member of the political party of former President Rafael Correa. “They want to keep Guillermo Lasso as president.”
Impeachment hearings, which need the votes of 92 legislators to proceed, could result in the censure or removal of Lasso, who has served for nearly two years.
The legislature has also voted to declassify presidential visitors logs, which are being digitized and are not yet public.
(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia in Quito; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
