The National Assembly (Parliament) of Ecuador will meet today to analyze the violence that is sweeping the country, mainly in the provinces of Guayas, Esmeraldas and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, which are under the state of emergency.
Assembly members will discuss a resolution in plenary to halt the escalation of killings, attacks and insecurity afflicting the nation.
Before that, the president of the legislature, Virgilio Saquicela, will have a meeting with the chairmen of the benches to try to reach the plenary session with a defined proposal and put it to the vote.
Meanwhile, the specter of so-called cross-death looms again in the political arena, a constitutional mechanism that allows lawmakers to convene an extraordinary session to remove the president and call new elections in the event of internal unrest.
Among those who raised the issue were members of the Union for Hope and Pachakutik, who questioned the President’s handling of the problem, believing that states of emergency and a military response are not a solution.
For his part, Interior Minister Juan Zapata said that an Israeli commission will arrive in Ecuador this week to complete the procurement of equipment needed by the security forces.
Lasso announced that he would remain in the city of Guayaquil for two weeks at the helm of the unified command post established as part of the declaration of the state of emergency.
The executive reported that there are 802 detainees linked to the attacks over the past few days following the security forces’ operations so far.
For the government, these criminal acts committed by criminal gangs linked to drug trafficking are the transfer of thousands of prisoners from the Litoral Penitentiary, the country’s largest in Guayaquil, to other detention centers.
The homicide rate in Ecuador is already 21 per 100,000 people this year due to the war waged by national and international cartels to control drug trafficking and the ineffective government response to the problem, experts in the field estimate.
Lasso’s government has been criticized for the lack of financial support for the National Police, whose funding will also be cut in 2023, according to next year’s budget project presented to the Assembly.
Furthermore, for the specialists, the increase in crime has its origins in the current government’s low public and social investments, which contribute to the increase in poverty and unemployment, and therefore point out that the answer to the problem should not be only military , but integral.
Latin Press