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Lenín Moreno freed vice president María Alejandra Vicuña from office
Posted On 04 Dec 2018
Ecuadornews:
The objective is that she can defend herself freely from the allegations about alleged undue payments to her ex-collaborators when she was a legislator. The Second President requested a license until December 31st.
Three days after serving 11 months in office, the Vice President of the Republic, María Alejandra Vicuña, temporarily leaves her functions. On Monday, December3, President Lenin Moreno “freed Vicuña of her functions”, so that she can exercise without any interference her right to self-defense, in the face of allegations of alleged undue charges to her former collaborators when she was a legislator of the province of Guayas for the PAIS Alliance movement.
The Head of State indicated that due to the delicacy of the functions, the General Secretary of the Presidency, José Agusto Briones, will be in charge of the Vice Presidency. Vicuña was in charge of the chairmanship of the Reconstruction Committee of Manabí and Esmeraldas, for the 2016 earthquake, directed the Committee of Popular and Solidarity Economy, was head of the Coordination with the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS) and in charge of the articulation of the citizen mandate expressed in the popular consultation.
According to article 149 of the Constitution, “… The Vice President or Vice President of the Republic, when she does not replace the President or President of the Republic, will exercise the functions that this or this one assigns”.
Vicuña asks for leave without salary
A few minutes after the announcement of Lenin Moreno made past noon, at the Government Palace, Vice President Maria Alejandra Vicuña, through social networks, issued a letter that she would have sent to the head of state during the hours of the morning.
In a message on her Twitter account she states that she has applied for a license without remuneration, “to exercise my legitimate right to defense and not to affect the management of the Government, especially the functions entrusted to me,” and encloses the letter.
In the precise writing. “Dear Mr. President. The process of self-defense thatI must sustain in the Attorney General’s Office, for investigations motivated by complaints that were disseminated without any contrast in a media, and with obvious malice last week, forces me to plan my self-defense with my team legal.And with the purpose of not distracting the fulfillment of the multiple functions that you have entrusted to me; I consider Mr. President that in this first stage, it is my responsibility and duty with the country, to ask him to grant me a license without remuneration until December 31 of this year, so that this process does not affect the government’s management “.
After 11 years of political activism and her 40 years of age, Vicuña became the new vice president of Ecuador in January of this year, replacing Jorge Glas,sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to commit a crime in the framework of the Corruption network of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in Ecuador.
At the legislative level, Fabricio Villamar, Assemblyman of the CREO movement,said that he hopes to gather until tomorrow the signatures necessary to formalize the request for impeachment against the Vice President, before the Legislative Administration Commission (CAL) ).
The parliamentarian assured that it already has 58 headings and aspires to have the backing of the legislative bloc of PAIS and the so-called correístas. The Deputy Minister of Interior and Politics, María Paula Romo, continues to be Vice-President, emphasizing that the President’s announcement refers specifically to the fact that María Alejandra Vicuña’s functions were suspended until she resolved the problem of the prosecution that the Prosecutor’s Office is handling.
The official indicated that for these reasons she entrusted the tasks of Vicuña to the Secretary of the Presidency, José Agusto Briones. Although she avoided answering whether the President’s action was due to the withdrawal of confidence in the Second President, Minister Romo stressed that, as the Head ofState said, it was done so that “she dedicates all her effort to her legitimate defense.” The interior official clarified that Vicuña will retain her appointment as vice president.
Lenín Moreno appoints new ministers in second readjustment of Government in 2018
The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, today announced the names of several positions headed by three ministries and high state institutions, which is the second government readjustment that took place during the year.
Among the new incumbents are José Agusto Briones as general secretary of the Presidency; Milton Luna as the new Minister of Education; Marcelo Mata as ownerof Ambiente; Rosa Prado as Minister of Tourism, and Marlo Brito as director of the Strategic Intelligence Center.
He also appointed the Minister of the Interior, Paula Romo, as secretary of National Policy Management.
The new charges took possession today at an event held at the presidential palace of Carondelet, in Quito, where he also announced that he was withdrawing the functions of Vice President María Alejandra Vicuña, involved in a scandal over the financing of his party.
In abrief appearance, Romo spoke on behalf of the new positions and thanked”the privilege of serving the country” and “doing it in such aspecial moment” considering that it is “important years of definitions”.
The Minister of the Interior highlighted “dialogue and respect for freedoms,just when society was polarized” and indicated that the Government of Lenin Moreno is committed to “more transparency, more democracy” and”reconciliation rather than confrontation, respect for the difference and the diversity “.
In the words of Romo, the current government defends “authority without authoritarianism” and privileges “what we have in common in the face of differences.”
For its part, the new Minister of Education, Milton Luna, defended that “today is the time to fight for the quality of education” and advocated a teaching “that has as a source of Human Rights” and a solid democracythat considered “A cyclical and strategic challenge”.
The Ecuadorian president has merged in recent months several ministries and national secretaries within a policy of austerity aimed at making the administrative apparatus that left his predecessor Rafael Correa lose weight.
The new appointments take place after the resignation of several ministers, and itis the second occasion in 2018 when the Executive restructures partially after the last one in May. (I)
