08/17/2020 - 19:53
- Clarín.com
- World
Former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, who ruled the country between 2007 and 2017, says he will run for the vice presidency of his country in the 2021 elections, representing the Citizen Revolution (RC) movement.
This was announced on Monday by the communications adviser of the ex-president, Amauri Chamorro, in a message on Twitter. An ally of former Argentine president Cristina Kirchner , the former head of state is now in the same position.
"The binomial of the Citizen Revolution for the presidential elections of 2021 in Ecuador will have Andrés Arauz as (candidate for) president and Mashi Rafael (Correa) as vice president," he wrote.
Until today it was not clear if the former president would run as part of the opposition presidential formula, because a recent reform of the electoral rules establishes that candidates chosen by his political forces in the primary elections must accept their candidacies in person in the country.
Correa, who after finishing his term in 2017 moved with his family to Belgium, the country where his wife is from, was sentenced in the second instance last July to a sentence of eight years in prison for a case of corruption during their governments.
Arauz, who yesterday also joined the Puebla Group, held various positions in Correa's economic cabinet, in addition to having been its Minister of Culture and director of the Central Bank during part of his term.
With the binomial of the UNES front -a coalition of two parties and several social movements that joined the Correismo after the break with the current president Lenin Moreno and the current ruling party-, there are already 11 candidacies for the Presidency in the elections of next February .
With the right-wing divided, after the collapse of popularity of the Lenin Moreno government, with an opposition that is also fragmented and with the country plunged into an economic and health crisis due to the pandemic, Correísmo presents itself as the main minority in the country with an intention of 31.4% vote , according to the latest survey by the Latin American Strategic Center for Geopolitics (Celag), published at the beginning of the month.
However, Correa could be prevented since the National Court of Justice (CNJ) of Ecuador ratified in July the sentence of eight years in prison for a crime of bribery and to pay compensation as "author" of the same to the former president, accused by the case "Bribes 2012-2016 ".
After two weeks of deliberation, the Court upheld the judgment issued in the first instance against the former president and the majority of the 18 convicted in the file.
"The court dismisses appeals from the majority of those sentenced, ratifies the penalty for bribery for 18 - including Rafael Correa - and modifies the sentence for two," reported the State Attorney General's Office on social networks.
"Proportional parameters" were also established to compensate the State for the damages caused, so that the perpetrators are obliged to pay a sum of $ 778,224 each and the accomplices $ 368,632.
The sentence for corruption has not surprised the former Ecuadorian president, who since 2017 lives in Belgium (the country of origin of his wife Anne Malherbe Gosseline) and is required by the Justice of his country.
Former President Correa, former Vice President Jorge Glas and 18 more people who were convicted of bribery in the Bribery case only have the appeal, before the sentence is implemented.
Through this figure, the defendants want to nullify the eight-year sentence established in the criminal process. This August 17, 2020, the criminal lawyer Mauricio Pacheco explained to the newspaper El Comercio de Quito that the Court appointed to analyze the cassation must examine whether errors were made when passing the sentence.
Magistrates can see if the law was misapplied and if a rule was misinterpreted. At this stage, the judges will only review the legal aspect of the ruling but not the fact itself or the evidence .
Source EFE and Clarín