Quito, Nov 9 (EFE).- The Ministry of Labor sanctioned the vice president of Ecuador, Verónica Abad, with 150 days of suspension, without pay, for “unjustified abandonment of work for three or more work days.”
The sanction occurs at a time when Ecuador has entered an electoral process in which the head of state, Daniel Noboa, is one of the 16 presidential candidates to govern the country between 2025 and 2029.
According to the law, to carry out an electoral campaign, Noboa – who assumed power last November – must temporarily delegate the position to his vice president, with whom he maintains a political pulse, evident since the beginning of the Government, when he sent her as ambassador to Israel.
The Ministry of Labor opened an administrative summary against Abad (who was elected by popular vote), considering that she did not arrive from Israel to Turkey on the date established by the Executive, at a time when there was an escalation of war in the Middle East.
Competent entity
Already last September, Abad asserted that the administrative summary initiated against him was “another act of political persecution and harassment.”
“(Noboa) has established several mechanisms to prevent me from replacing him in office when he is forced to leave it due to his imminent candidacy,” Abad said then in reference to the nomination of Noboa, whose candidacy is already firm in the National Electoral Council. .
Abad maintained that the Ministry of Labor did not have the power to open an administrative file against her, which she presumed was an intention to remove her for abandonment of office, and argued that she can only be removed from the position of vice president by the National Assembly (Parliament).
In one of the first reactions to the Ministry’s sanction, presidential candidate Henry Cucalón noted on the social network
After pointing out that in substance and form the sanction against Abad is “unconstitutional and illegal,” he commented that all this has “one objective: that he cannot replace the President in the electoral campaign.”
But lawyer Eduardo Franco Loor pointed out in Republic, whose powers and powers are constitutional.”
Consequently, an action for constitutional protection of Abad is appropriate in the face of “this abuse by the Executive Branch,” he added, who also considers that it is “a political retaliation to prevent (Abad) from temporarily assuming the Presidency.”
Political gender violence
The sanction of five months of suspension adopted by the Ministry, publicly known this Saturday, is dated November 8, the same day that Abad supported with eight alleged “attacks” the complaint for alleged political gender violence that he filed against Noboa and other members of his Administration.
He did so through his defense during the hearing before the Contentious Electoral Court (TCE), which he asked to sanction Noboa, the chancellor, Gabriela Sommerfeld; to the presidential advisor Diana Jácome and the former vice minister of Government Esteban Torres.
According to Damián Armijos, Abad’s lawyer, Noboa and the other officials have sought “at all costs” to prevent their client from exercising her public function.
Furthermore, he pointed out that they have sought to “frighten, intimidate and harass her” in order to “cause her resignation and thus avoid the presidential succession, as mandated by the Constitution.”
The TCE also processes counterclaims filed by Jácome and the chancellor against Abad for the same terms of alleged gender violence.
The decision of the Ministry of Labor came three days after the TCE fined Abad $8,500, but did not suspend his political rights as requested by a complaint for having campaigned before the deadline in the 2023 elections, when he was candidate for mayor of the Andean city of Cuenca.
(c) EFE Agency
