Ecuador’s Vice Minister of Government Esteban Torres said this week that he is facing impeachment over “mental incapacity” charges.
Noboa, 36, was elected president in October after defeating socialist candidate Luisa González and becoming the nation’s youngest elected president at just 35 years old.
Vice Minister Torres said in a social media post that the National Assembly was planning to impeach him, claiming that there are legislative members “who are already airing medical reports with any nonsense just to hit Noboa and the Government.”
“President Noboa’s popularity and voting intention numbers are so frightening to the anti-government political camp in the [National] Assembly, that now they have even planned to disqualify him politically, inventing and reediting the ‘old reliable’ of mental incapacity,” Torres’ said.
Torres claimed that the opposition lawmakers “no longer know what else to do” to remove Noboa from power.
“They [the opposition] have not been able to position a single candidate a few months before the election and that is why now they are radicalizing the ‘all against Noboa,’” Torres continued. “Even the Citizen Revolution [former socialist President Correa’s party] that has 20 percent [support] is losing its political sense, let alone the rest of the tents that have marginal and millimetric electoral options.”
Last month, American Faith reported Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso moved to dissolve the country’s National Assembly after facing his own impeachment.
President Lasso called early elections for both the presidency and the legislature, a decision he defended as democratic and constitutionally sanctioned.
“This is a democratic decision, not only because it is constitutional, but because it returns the power to the Ecuadorean people … to decide their future in the next elections,” Lasso argued, referring to the situation as a grave crisis threatening the country’s democracy.
President Lasso is accused of turning a blind eye to embezzlement linked to a contract at the state-owned Flopec, an allegation he vehemently denies.
Despite the crisis, the military and police have vowed to uphold their respect for the constitution and law.
Nelson Proano, commander of Ecuador’s armed forces, endorsed the decision to dissolve the assembly, affirming its constitutional validity.
