Quito’s mayor resists being replaced by city councilman

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The mayor of Ecuador’s capital city Quito, Jorge Yunda, announced this Monday (19) that he will file legal actions against the controversial removal from office applied by some opposition councilmen, led by the deputy mayor, Santiago Guarderas, who signed today a provision to assume the incumbent’s position.

The disconcerting situation was generated after a court revoked the precautionary measures that Yunda had requested, contesting the removal applied by the opposition councilmen.

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The Municipal Council removed Yunda last June 3 at the request of a front of citizens who accused him of having failed to perform his duties and of having refused to render accounts of his administration.

Likewise, the mayor has been accused of signing contracts that allegedly benefited his relatives, although he rejects this claim.

Guarderas, in a meeting with councilors and like-minded citizens, signed this afternoon a resolution by which he assumed the office of Mayor of the Ecuadorian capital until 2023.

“We will put the municipality in order,” the budgets will be reviewed and in the shortest possible time “we will present to the Council and to the city the project of economic reactivation,” said Guarderas, who promoted Yunda’s removal last June 3.

With the majority vote of the City Council, Guarderas succeeded in removing Yunda, who requested two courts to take protective actions and precautionary measures in his favor, to prevent his departure.

After learning that a judge revoked the precautionary measures granted to him, Yunda assured that he will file “the legal recourses” allowed by law and that “before any attempt to take over the Mayor’s Office” he will request measures to enforce the protective action in his favor.

The Court of the province of Pichincha, whose capital is Quito, must rule next Friday on the appeal for protective action in favor of Yunda, who considers that the actions taken by the opposition mayors against him should be annulled.

In addition, Yunda sent, through his Twitter account a message to Guarderas: “Failure to comply with a legitimate order of a competent authority is a crime. There is a protective action that evidenced the violation of my rights, that is yet to be resolved by the Provincial Court,” he wrote.

Guarderas, on his part, assured that in the removal process “due process” has been “strictly observed” and that “prudence” was exaggerated.