After a year and 17 days of serving as president of the National Assembly, Assemblywoman Guadalupe Llori de Time (PK) She was dismissed by a majority of the plenary session on May 31, 2022.
The resolution was taken with 81 votes of 82 assembly members present, in the reinstatement of session 772 in which the report of the Ad Hoc Multiparty Commission that recommended his removal from office for breach of duties, following a complaint filed by the legislator of the Christian Social Party (PSC), Esteban Torres.
The legislator of the bench of Union for Hope (UNES)Marcela Holguín proposed the motion for Llori’s dismissal, in which it is arranged that Virgilio Saquicela assume the presidency and the Legislative Escort give him the corresponding security.
Other legislators who made up the Multiparty Commission, such as Lucía Placencia of the Democratic Left (ID), Peter Calo (PK) and Pamela Aguirre (UNES), defended the report.
Aguirre, for example, assured that Llori’s dismissal was not sought for being a woman or indigenous, but for breach of duties. “No one is above the law,” she emphasized.
At 9:22 p.m., a vote was taken on this motion, which was approved with 81 affirmative votes and one blank vote.
In accordance with the Organic Law of the Legislative Function, in the definitive absence of the president, the first or second vice president will replace her, until the National Assembly fills the vacancies at the end of the two-year term.
At 9:30 p.m., Virgilio Saquicela was sworn in as president of the Legislature, following an oath taken by legislator Darwin Pereira, as a member of the Legislative Administration Council (CAL).
#PlenoLegislativo | President @VSaquicelaE invites a meeting with the heads of caucuses and with the presidents of the legislative commissions to establish a legislative work route. “My commitment to the 136 legislators to walk together”, she concludes. pic.twitter.com/MOJJ1LTFo5
– National Assembly (@AsambleaEcuador) June 1, 2022
Saquicela’s first actions were to convene the continuation of this session this Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. to continue with the items on the agenda; and he announced that this Friday he will convene a new session to deal with and resolve the second debate on the Bill on the Legitimate Use of Force.
This political scenario began minutes following 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31, in which session 772 was reinstated, which was chaired by Vice President Virgilio Saquicela, following the presidency was appealed to Guadalupe Llori on May 18. .
In this plenary session, the Violet Law project was discussed and when the PSC legislator began, Jorge Abedrabbo raised a motion to reject the precautionary measures issued by Judge Pedro Troya, of the Quitumbe Judicial Unit of Quito, on May 27, in which ordered the plenary session to refrain from knowing and dealing with the report of the ad hoc commission.
Abedrabbo pointed out that these precautionary measures are extemporaneous, since they were resolved when the multi-party commission had been extinguished at the end of the substantiation of Torres’s complaint on May 25. In addition, he evoked the independence of State functions, since legislators do not rule on judicial actions.
Saquicela accepted the inclusion of the treatment of this motion and ordered the vote. In the midst of the claims of the PK legislators who support Llori and the voting cries of the Union for Hope (UNES) and PSC benches and some independents with 81 votes -of 83 legislators present- it was approved to include this motion , which included submitting the partisan commission’s report to debate.
Saquicela suspended the treatment of the point and gave the respondent, Guadalupe Llori, an hour to appear in plenary and exercise her right to defense. Meanwhile, she continued the treatment of the Violet Law project.
Llori had not arrived. The report of the commission was read, and following almost two hours of reading, Llori did not arrive in the hemicycle.
After 7:20 p.m., the Legislative Palace was surrounded by members of the Judicial Police, who would have come to support the Legislative Escort.
Assemblyman Darwin Moreira (PK), warned that an attempt was being made to boycott the session, interrupting the Internet to prevent the recording of the votes. “It would be an illegal act if they try to boycott any process that has to do with information technologies. They are not going to come to us with the deception that the system is down, the internet is gone. We know how this works and we are not going to allow this to happen,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, in the plenary session, Saquicela requested that Llori’s presence be confirmed, but his absence was confirmed.
We proceeded with the intervention of the complainant, Assemblyman Esteban Torres, who extolled that political decisions cannot be subject to precautionary measures. “This decision that is made will be covered by the necessary constitutionality,” he specified.
He recalled why Llori was denounced, when he did not give way to the presidency’s appeal in session 766. He urged the Legislative Escort to respect political decisions and avoid intervening with attempts to boycott the debate.
“This plenary session makes political decisions and the decision made upon learning of this report will be political. Nothing resembles the Assembly,” he said, adding that “the force of reason, the force of logic is on our side” and asked the plenary to make the decision to remove Llori from the dignity of the presidency.
The legislator of Pachakutik, Salvador Quishpe, Resigned, he said that force will be stronger than reason and the law. “Obviously they will throw her out, they will dismiss her. It won’t be the first time that those who have governed or misruled this country have told us off.”
He recalled several events of the Rafael Correa government in which indigenous leaders died and acts of corruption. That pissed off the block Union for Hope (UNES) that questioned him. He angrily snapped at them: “Silence, damn it! and he further deepened the discrepancies, which were diluted minutes later.
Marcela Holguín reproached Llori for her obstinacy in clinging to a position. “Of his tricks to prevent the complaints that have been filed from being investigated, such as having decimated Assembly officials; the country is tired of his cynicism when using justice to remain in impunity”.
He spoke of agreements “under the table, the tricks and threats have served to show that you do not represent the people, you are only presiding to defend your interests. Because of them, she even became a simple delegate of the Executive. She cannot preside over the first power of the State, her actions have not only put the legislature to shame, she has also betrayed all those who believed in you”.
After almost four hours of debate, Saquicela was sworn in as head of the National Assembly and in a brief speech extended the invitation to dialogue to the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso.
“Today the circumstances of national politics allow this canarejo to assume the presidency of the first power of the State, I do it with pride, with simplicity. I do it to represent the country, to sit down with all sectors, with university students to make a positive law so that people can study”, he extolled.
“This Friday we will give the country a law on the progressive use of force, for the benefit of those people who sacrifice themselves day by day to defend the lives of Ecuadorians. (…) My commitment to the 137 legislators to walk together for the benefit of Ecuadorian legislation and oversight,” added Saquicela, who announced that this Wednesday he will convene meetings with CAL members and representatives of the five legislative benches. (YO)
