Ecuador’s Vice Minister of Government Esteban Torres alleged on Thursday that opposition lawmakers are attempting to impeach President Daniel Noboa due to claims of “mental incapacity.” Noboa’s predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, faced 14 impeachment attempts from socialist lawmakers during his tenure, which eventually rendered him unable to govern.
Torres stated that the opposition’s plans were revealed through medical reports allegedly intended to discredit Noboa. “President Noboa’s popularity and voting intention numbers are so frightening to the anti-government political camp in the National Assembly, that now they have even planned to disqualify him politically, inventing and reediting the ‘old reliable’ of mental incapacity,” Torres said in a social media post.
National Assembly Vice President Valentina Centeno from the ruling National Democratic Action Alliance party accused opposition lawmakers of seeking to repeat previous attempts to impeach leaders by declaring them mentally unfit to rule.
Lawmaker Viviana Veloz, part of the Citizen Revolution party, denied the accusations and stated that there are no plans to declare Noboa mentally disabled. Instead, Veloz accused the government of spreading false information to distract from pressing issues.
In a separate incident, Ecuador’s National Assembly condemned “unfortunate statements” attributed to President Noboa in a New Yorker article, with Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld stating that the article aimed to “cause harm” and took quotes out of context.
