Inaugural session of Ecuador’s parliament suspended due to lack of agreement

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The National Assembly of Ecuador (Parliament) suspended this Friday its inaugural session due to the inability of the parliamentary groups to reach an agreement to elect its new president and other authorities of the Legislative Power, and it was postponed to tomorrow.

After nine hours of the session, in which there were more recesses and protocols than debate, the interim president of the Assembly, Pierina Correa, of the UNES party and sister of former president Rafael Correa, requested the postponement of the session, which will resume at 3 PM local time on Saturday.

As the only clear conclusion of the day, the high fragmentation of the Assembly and that the first session seems to have taken away the alliance between the Social Christian Party (PSC) and Creating Opportunities (CREO), vital for the latter party’s candidate, Guillermo Lasso, to obtain the Presidency last April 11.

The rupture occurred after CREO pulled out of an a priori agreement with the Correista list, the largest with 49 seats so that the PSC candidate Henry Kronfle would be elected president of the Chamber.

“Today they have shown that their word and their signature are worthless”, said the PSC in an open letter in which they showed their disappointment with Lasso’s party, and in which they assure that he had consented to this unusual alliance with his rivals within his project of national reconciliation, the so-called “Ecuador of the encounter”.

The vote took place at the beginning of the first session of the Assembly after the general elections of February 7.

UNES is followed in this order in parliamentary representation by the indigenous movement Pachakutik, with 26; Izquierda Democrática and PSC, with 18 each, and CREO, with 12.

To these are added 14 independent seats to the 137 that will make up the chamber, which for the first time since 2007 starts without a clear majority.