©Reuters. Lasso suffers opposition setback by leaving him without Investment Law in Ecuador
Quito, March 24 (.).- The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, suffered a serious setback this Thursday by running out of his Investment Law, a key tool of his Government that sought to revitalize the country’s economy and that was shelved by the opposition by voting against it in the National Assembly (Parliament).
With this legislative initiative, Lasso hoped to attract up to 30,000 million dollars (about 27,194.1 million euros) to the country in investments and thereby generate two million jobs, under a commitment to promote Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). ) to execute different strategic projects.
Before the decisive debate in the plenary session of the Assembly, the Executive had justified its proposal under the premise that the law allowed the generation of employment with the expected investments in sectors such as oil, mining, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure.
President Lasso himself had an important participation in the public debate on the legal project, which he had described as an opportunity to start the country down the path of development.
However, the bill met with outright rejection and mistrust from the left in Ecuador, including social movements such as indigenous organizations and unions, who feared it would promote the privatization of public companies and favor the private sector to the detriment of state coffers. .
STRONG OPPOSITION
Thus, in the final vote, Lasso’s Investment Law was rejected with the votes of 87 assembly members, almost double the 44 who were in favor of the initiative, while another three voted abstention.
The Union for Hope (Unes) voted against the legislative initiative, the first force in Parliament, made up of supporters of Correismo (former President Rafael Correa), who were joined by the indigenist and multinational movement Pachakutik and the Democratic Left. (social democracy).
The Assembly thus reversed a rule proposed by the president, just as the president had done the previous week when he partially vetoed the law that decriminalized and regulated abortion for rape, in compliance with a ruling by the Constitutional Court.
This last result in the Legislative, where the Executive is in a minority, evidenced the difficulty that the president will encounter in order to carry out the main reforms that he intends to formulate after coming to power 10 months ago.
CALLED TO CROSS DEATH
Faced with the failure to approve this crucial norm for the Government, there are already voices from the ruling party that have appealed to “cross death”, a formula contemplated in the Constitution where the president can dissolve Parliament and legislate by means of decrees for a year until hold new elections.
Asked about this possibility, Lasso assured last Tuesday that he preferred to wait to see the result of the vote in the Assembly before thinking about that scenario.
Once known, the ruler, visibly upset, branded the legislators who rejected his proposal as “thieves” by accusing them of conditioning their vote in exchange for benefits such as works for their provinces and even money and tax exemptions.
“Today, the National Assembly turned its back on the country”, to women and young people who are clamoring for employment, said the president in a message on social networks, where he denounced that legislators even tried to blackmail the government.
“This law has been denied because we have not accepted the blackmail” of politicians who have asked for “hospitals, electricity companies, ministries in exchange for their votes,” Lasso assured, who even pointed to the leader and former presidential candidate of the Democratic Left, Xavier Hervás, asking for financial favors.
“They are thieves and corrupt, it must be said clearly” and the people are “outraged against these politicians,” insisted the conservative leader and former banker.
DOES NOT GIVE UP
The Ecuadorian president anticipated that he will analyze “all the alternatives” that the Constitution allows him “to insist and fight for that opportunity that the Ecuadorian people aspire to” of having an investment law.
Faced with Lasso’s accusations, the Democratic Left came out to distance itself and classify the president’s statements as “slander.”
“A bill of this magnitude and with this type of attitude and pressure we cannot give way,” insisted Assemblyman Marlon Cadena, of the ID.
In the face of Lasso’s anger, the filing of the Investment Law has also been well received by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), which had described the initiative as “the greatest assault on public property and heritage of all Ecuadorians”.
/jpd