Ecuador's government called Vice President Veronica Abad's request for an electoral coup a coup the country's court to remove President Daniel Noboa from office, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Noboa and Abad have been in strained relations since the start of the head of state's term in November 2023. Since last year, Ecuador's vice president has been in Tel Aviv, where Noboa sent her to support efforts to achieve peace between Israel and "Hamas".
According to Abad Noboa, he unfairly removed her from the national political scene, thereby harming gender equality in governance. "Noboa has reduced my participation as a woman in making political decisions related to the state, trying to completely remove me from the public life of the country almost to the point of erasing the political institutional figure of the vice president," argued Abad. In her complaint, the vice president of Ecuador says that she feels punished.
"I was practically banished to another country in the middle of a war. They deprived me of the security I deserve," Abad also wrote. These actions on the part of the Ecuadorian president, which his deputy calls "gender-based political violence", should lead to the removal of Noboa and other high-ranking representatives of the authorities from their posts, to a ban on them holding public office for a period of four years and up to a fine of 70 minimum monthly wages, the complaint states.
In a statement, the government called Abad's actions "a clumsy attempt at destabilization that shamelessly involves a clear attempt at a coup". Noboa, who is serving a shorter, 17-month term and has focused his rule on improving security, announced this month that he would run for a full presidential term in February's election, Reuters noted. The Ecuadorian president was elected to the post last year to complete the 18 months remaining in the term of his predecessor Guillermo Lasso, who resigned to avoid impeachment proceedings. Parliament had targeted Lasso over the deadly protests against rising food and fuel prices the previous year.