Ecuador’s president dissolves Congress to avoid impeachment

On May 17th Guillermo Lasso, Ecuador’s conservative president, used a previously untried constitutional rule known as muerte cruzada (“mutual death”) to dissolve the National Assembly, after it looked poised to impeach him. “I am obliged to respond to the political crisis in which the country is mired,” he said in a nationwide address. He accused the National Assembly of having a “political project to destabilise the government, democracy and the state”. Snap presidential and parliamentary elections will follow within 97 days. Until then Mr Lasso will rule by executive decree. The president started off by signing an order which lowered income taxes. He said this would help around half a million families.

The standoff between Mr Lasso and the National Assembly is only the latest iteration of a power struggle between the executive and legislative branches, which has frequently destabilised Ecuadorean politics. From 1997 to 2005, no elected president managed to serve out a full term. A new constitution, introduced in 2008 under Rafael Correa, a left-winger who was then president, made impeachment trickier. The trial against Mr Lasso has taken three months of wrangling.