Four members of Lenín Moreno’s Cabinet left office in less than a month. At the ‘small table’, which was a decision-making space for those closest to the president, there is hardly anyone who has been in it since 2017.
Chancellor Luis Gallegos was the last to leave, who, until yesterday, Thursday, March 12, did not have a replacement. In a brief letter, he said that he was doing it for “personal reasons”, but sources from the Palacio de Najas assured that his decision was produced by a disavowal of Jorge Wated, who has been Secretary General of the Cabinet for three weeks.
Luis Gallegos, career ambassador, was the third chancellor of the regime, after María Fernanda Espinosa and José Valencia.
The number of ministers and high-ranking officials who have been part of the Cabinet in this Government, so far during the administration period, rose to 72.
The changes have taken place especially in Environment (6), Transportation (5), Government (5), as well as in Health, Finance and Education, with four ministers each department.
Since last February 19, Juan Sebastián Roldán, one of Moreno’s closest political operators, resigned, instability has increased. The acute crisis derived from the pandemic and the scandals precipitated the departure of the Ministry of Health, Juan Carlos Zevallos.
The former minister gave his testimony before the Prosecutor’s Office, for an accusation of influence peddling in the vaccination plan for COVID 19. He did it by videoconference, this Thursday, since he is not in the country.
The president had to make internal movements. Undersecretary Rodolfo Farfán assumed the Ministry of Health on March 1. On March 8, he appointed Gabriel Martínez Minister of Government and Jorge Loor of Transportation.
Martínez replaced Patricio Pazmiño, who resigned, according to him, for having contracted COVID-19 for the second time. He spent three months replacing María Paula Romo, who was censored by the National Assembly, which caused the Executive to be left without its main political operator.
In the opinion of the sociologist Nathalia Sierra, this scenario reflects institutional crisis and loss of allies. “This shows an institutional weakness, rarely seen, which also reveals a deterioration of what the State should be,” said Sierra, with which political scientist Pablo Pardo agrees.
Rosalía Arteaga, former vice president of the Republic, hopes that it will not affect the transition; although, precisely, the Minister of Labor, Andrés Isch, in charge of this task, faces an impeachment process.
In Arteaga’s opinion, “the Government is in a period of weakness, motivated by a series of circumstances, and as it is already approaching the end of the period, this also affects the non-permanence of its ministers.”
Almost no one is left of the ministers with whom he assumed power on May 24, 2017; Only the Legal Secretary, Johana Pesántez, and the Sports Secretary, Andrea Sotomayor, seem to be there until Moreno leaves power, in two months.
Pesántez is also part of Carondelet’s ‘small table’, as is the Minister of Telecommunications, Andrés Michelena, a circle that has undergone changes.
This space was an environment where the confidence of the president was measured with his collaborators, so it was always an internal place in dispute. Otto Sonnenholzner, the third of Moreno’s four vice presidents, and former ministers José Agusto, Richard Martínez, Paúl Granda, Juan Sebastián Roldán, María Paula Romo and Santiago Cuesta passed through there.
Be the first to comment