What is the 'cross death' invoked by President Lasso in Ecuador and what happens now

Ecuador is experiencing critical days: just one day after a political trial began against him, the country's president, Guillermo Lasso, decided this Wednesday to dissolve Congress and call general elections.

Lasso was, according to several analysts, “between a rock and a hard place”, after beginning on Tuesday a political trial against him in the National Assembly with an opposition majority led by Union por la Esperanza (UNES), the left-wing party of former President Rafael Correa, an asylum seeker in Belgium as he has pending convictions for corruption in Ecuador.

The opposition accused Lasso of the crime of embezzlement (embezzlement), for not terminating a contract between the Ecuadorian Oil Fleet (Flopec) and the Amazonas Tankers consortium for the transport of petroleum derivatives, which supposedly would have caused serious damage . economic to state coffers.

The “cross death”

Thus, the Assembly began a plenary session this Tuesday on the possible removal of the president, which was to be put to a vote in the coming days.

But this Wednesday Lasso signed the decree to dissolve the Assembly, based on the so-called “cross death”.

It is the first time that this figure has been applied in Ecuador, included in the 2008 Constitution - which was promulgated during the term of former President Rafael Correa - and protected by the Organic Law of the Legislative Function.

“Cross death” allows the head of state to dissolve the National Assembly if he feels it is impeding his ability to govern.

The law specifies that the National Electoral Council (CNE) must call presidential and legislative elections within a maximum period of seven days from the decree.

The first round of these elections “will be held within a maximum period of ninety days after the call”, according to article 50 of the Organic Law of the Legislative Function, and the public representatives elected in them will remain until the end of the legislature in 2025, when the next regular elections are scheduled.

Lasso can stand as a candidate in early elections, risking losing power before the official end of his term in 2025.

This is where the expression “cross death” comes from, since both the president and the National Assembly can lose their powers by decreeing it.

From now on and for a maximum period of 6 months, Lasso can rule by decree.

The president justified his decision by accusing opponents of “putting Ecuadorian democracy in check” through a “destabilization” strategy, and promised to return “to the Ecuadorian people” the power to “decide their future in the next elections.”

What is Lasso looking for?

In order to maintain power, Lasso would have only needed a third of the 137 congressmen in the Assembly to reject his dismissal in the political trial, but he finally decided not to wait for the vote and decree the cross death. Because?

“I think he was lost, he was unable to negotiate the necessary votes. His strategy is to be able to govern through decrees, since the current scenario was not favorable for him,” the Ecuadorian political scientist and researcher Koya Shuguli told BBC Mundo.

According to experts, Lasso's room for maneuver is very narrow, since he only has a few months left to govern through decree-laws at a time when his popularity is at minimum levels , partly due to the crisis of insecurity and violence that he is experiencing. the country without the government having been able to provide solutions, which could augur a defeat in early elections.

“It is a sensitive move and it would lead the president to political suicide,” journalist Arturo Torres had told BBC Mundo before Lasso signed the decree and activated the “cross death.”

Torres considered, in fact, that the decision taken this Wednesday by the president opens a more favorable scenario for the correistas (supporters of former President Correa) , who were the big winners of the recent sectional elections in February, in which the electorate severely punished Lasso's management.

“This envisions the anticipated return of correismo,” Shuguli predicts.

Cross death can also generate another serious problem for the Lasso executive and the country in general: a wave of protests with unforeseeable consequences.

Indigenous movements have already warned of mobilizations if this were to happen, and other political and social groups could join.

At the moment, the Armed Forces have been deployed to face possible mobilizations in key points in Quito, such as the Carondelet Palace, the Legislative Palace and the Ministry of Defense, and the closure of several roads in the capital has been decreed.

“It is a conflictive scenario that is not going to solve, but rather exacerbate, the problems of ordinary people,” said journalist Arturo Torres.