Ecuador: Vice-president fired for abandonment of post

The Ecuadorian government has suspended the country’s vice president, Veronica Abad, without pay for 150 days for “unjustified abandonment” of her post, the Labor Ministry announced on Saturday.

This disciplinary sanction is a new episode in the execrable relations between right-wing president Daniel Noboa and his vice-president, to whom he must in principle entrust power in January if he wants to campaign for his re-election.

Daniel Noboa, who cannot legally dismiss his vice-president elected at the same time as him in 2023, appointed Veronica Abad as Ecuador’s ambassador to Israel in December 2023.

A second presidential term

In September, due to the worsening conflict in the Middle East, Veronica Abad was transferred to Ankara for security reasons. Her five-month layoff, signed by an official from the government’s human resources department, is due to the fact that she arrived at her new post in Turkey five days late.

In August, Veronica Abad filed a complaint against Daniel Noboa for gender-based violence with the aim of having him dismissed. The president denounced a “betrayal”. Daniel Noboa plans to run for a second term in the presidential election in February 2025. The country’s Constitution provides that the head of state can campaign for re-election, provided he entrusts his powers to the vice-president during this time.

The electoral campaign officially begins in January, during Veronica Abad’s layoff. President Noboa “sought by all means to prevent the exercise of public office by the Vice-President, but also tried to threaten her, intimidate her, harass her with the aim of provoking her resignation and “thus avoiding presidential succession,” lamented Veronica Abad’s lawyer, Damian Armijos.

Last June, the Ecuadorian Parliament refused to lift the immunity of Veronica Abad, whom the prosecution wanted to prosecute for a corruption case involving one of her sons. The vice-president denounced “persecution”.

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