Guillermo Lasso receives credentials as Constitutional President of Ecuador

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The National Electoral Council (CNE) of Ecuador delivered this Wednesday the credential of Constitutional President of the Republic to conservative Guillermo Lasso will assume power on Monday for the next four years, replacing Lenín Moreno.

The president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint, in a ceremony held at the organization’s headquarters, delivered the accreditation documents to Lasso and his vice president, Antonio Borrero, who won in the second round of the general elections of last April 11.

In an emotional speech, Atamaint assured that human beings “life always places us as witnesses or protagonists of history” and that, for this reason, he was now handing over the presidential credentials to Lasso, after a transparent electoral process praised by national and foreign observers.

The president-elect, on his part, agreed that his election had taken place after “transparent elections in hard times for our country”.

“I will do everything humanly possible to live up to such a sovereign assignment”, promised Lasso, who recalled several of his campaign proposals and assured that his Administration intends to be a space for the “meeting of citizens”.

He did not hesitate to criticize former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017). However, he did not name him and criticized that recently the Correista group in Parliament has hinted him a governability pact which, according to Lasso, “sounded tempting”, but which he rejected.

“The situation we will face will be very hard,” but this will not imply that a pact can be made in exchange for requests for impunity or to prevent the justice system from examining acts of alleged corruption.

Governability, Lasso said, cannot be presented “as a bargaining chip in a barter of votes”, because this would lead to undermine democracy and put “citizens as hostages of politicians”.

For Lasso, the basis of governance is “to preserve above all the honorability and trust that citizens have in their institutions and public affairs”.

He called on Ecuadorians to start “the path towards a full democracy”, although he accepted that to achieve this goal requires “dedication, patience, and tolerance”.

“This effort is worth it,” added Lasso, who declared himself a convinced democrat because to defend that system is also to believe “in the beauty of dreams.”

“Democracy is an invitation to dream” and to develop individual potentialities to recover “the collective illusion” and that “lost hope” that many social sectors have claimed.

“Let’s all get up together and restore the promise of Ecuadorian democracy,” Lasso said as he accepted, as he remarked, “the will of a people who decided to change.”

Ecuador’s president-elect will take office next Monday at an inauguration ceremony attended by at least eight heads of state, including Spain’s King Felipe VI.

Among the presidents of the region who have confirmed their participation are the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro; of Chile, Sebastián Piñera; of Colombia, Iván Duque; of Haiti, Jovenel Moise; of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader; of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández; and of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou.