Fernando Rosero: Rafael Correa Communicated with Elsa Bucaram

Fernando Rosero says President Rafael Correa contacted him to ask for the vote of the PRE in the TSE

Fernando Rosero Gonzalez, former member of the Ecuadorian Roldosista Party (PRE for its Spanish acronym), said that the evening of March 5, 2007, he received a call from President Rafael Correa.

According to Rosero, Correa would have asked him the phone number of Elsa Bucaram Ortiz, member of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE for its Spanish acronym) at that time, to ask her support in order to win the plebiscite to form the Constituent Assembly.

According to Rosero, the next day Elsa contacted him and said that Correa had requested a meeting between the members, who voted in favor, to reach political agreements.

Rosero said Correa proposed the meeting in his suite at  Hilton Colon Hotel in Quito. The meeting began after 18:00 on that day. Rosero said the lobby managers called to warn him about the journalists that were “surrounding” the hotel and wanted to get inside the building.

“I talked to hotel managers to help me to get the members outside. They left through the backdoor to avoid the media. A vehicle was waiting there,” he recalls.

On March 7, the members met again, this time at the headquarters of the TSE.

Rosero said the actions of Elsa Bucaram in the TSE were part of an agreement between the PRE and the Government, to bring former president Abdala Bucaram Ortiz back to the country. MZ