Quito.- Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso recorded a message to the nation assuring that the trial against him “smells very bad” and is only trying to tarnish his reputation.
In a video broadcast on a national network and immediately uploaded to social networks, Lasso appears surrounded by his wife María de Lourdes Alcívar and a diverse group of 50 people, with their country’s flag in the background.
In the speech, he accused the opposition of fabricating evidence against them in order to “seize power and weaken and destroy democracy.”
Lasso’s message comes a day after the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the impeachment request for alleged embezzlement, leaving the president’s impeachment proceedings to be formally initiated within a maximum of two months.
“I am a democrat who believes that democracy is strengthened by more democracy, so I respect the Constitutional Court’s decision, although I do not share it,” Lasso said in his statement.
In this sense, the Ecuadorian President claimed to be “innocent” and to have always acted with “right intention”.
He added that the impeachment petition against him was a “desperate, timeless and violent attempt to steal stability from the Ecuadorian citizens” and that it was his duty to defend his good name and that of his family.
The Ecuadorian President has been linked to The Great Godfather case following the disclosure of documents and recordings made by a local media outlet. According to the complaints, businessman Danilo Carrera, brother-in-law of the president, is said to be involved in an alleged network to sell positions and contracts in public sector companies and alleged ties to the Albanian mafia, which would have $1.5 million for 2021 election campaign of the current President of Ecuador, the successor to Lenín Moreno.
However, Lasso insisted during his speech that he had no connection to the case.
“They allegedly accuse me of misusing public funds for my own gain before I was President of the Republic, how is that possible? What do I have to do with a contract from 2018? There is not even a prosecutor’s investigation into this issue,” the president argued.
In the end, Lasso concluded on an upbeat tone, assuring that “this is a fight we will win because the truth always wins”.