With 37 votes in favor of the trial, 32 against, six abstentions and five absences, the Chamber of Deputies filed the second impeachment attempt against Sandra Quiñónez in four years in office.
Basilio “Bachi” Núñez, national deputy for the ANR, and leader of the Chartist caucus (defender of Quiñónez) questioned that while citizens await solutions on the increase in fuel and the consequent increase in the price of the basic basket, the deputies are focused on the political trial.
“Article 201 of the Constitution says that we have the freedom to vote for the meaning that we believe is best. We cannot live dissociated from citizenship, from the reality of the people. Solutions to the drought, increase in fuel, increase in the products of the basic basket. Even smuggling. While we continue with the political trial”, he questioned.
Several opposition legislators such as Antonio Buzarquis (PLRA), Sebastián García (PPQ) and Kattya González (PEN), unsuccessfully tried to delay the filing of the document by extending the list of speakers. However, the Chartists and Abdists prevented it by voting against it.
Jazmín Narváez, a national deputy for the ruling party, asked her colleagues on the bench to vote for what was agreed, in the sense of voting for the approval of the trial, moments before the voting began. However, she was not successful either, since only eight of the 18 pro-government deputies voted in that direction.
OPPOSITION
Antonio Buzarquis, deputy for the PLRA (Efrainista caucus “A”), reported that the opposition caucus finally decided to participate in the voting. He alleged that they did it to defend the impeachment arguments.
“Today we come to denounce the regrowth of the scar operation,” he said.
Sebastián García, deputy for the PPQ, ironized for his part that several of his colleagues were “enlightened” in the last few hours and therefore will vote against the trial. This, in clear allusion to the fact that some deputies were encouraged to change their position.
VOTE
In favor, 37 deputies voted; (PLRA, 21 votes) (Efrainist caucus A); Fernando Oreggioni, Ariel Villagra, Enrique Buzarquis, Emilio Pavón and Rodrigo Blanco. (Block “B” llanista); Hugo Capurro, Manuel Trinidad, Sergio Rojas and José Rodríguez. (Bancada “C” tabloid), Celso Kennedy, Pastor Vera Bejarano, Esmérita Sánchez and Roya Torres. (bank D); Edgar Acosta, Celeste Amarilla, Eusebio Alvarenga, Jorge Ávalos Mariño, Celso Maldonado, Teófilo Espínola. Plus the independents; Eri Valdez and Carlos Maria Lopez.
Four deputies from bench “B”; Édgar Ortiz, Marcelo Salinas, María López Rotela and Enrique Minuer plus Carlos Silva from bench C, and Ramón Ayala Acevedo from bench D, were the liberals who did not support impeachment, six in total. Eight pro-government deputies voted in favor of the trial, they went; Colym Soroka, Jazmín Narváez, Freddy D’Ecclesiis, Carmen Giménez de Ovando, Roberto González, Éver Noguera, Édgar Espínola and Hugo Ibarra.
Carlos Núñez Salinas, Luis Urbieta, Guadalupe Aveiro, Arnaldo Samaniego, Pastor Soria, Esteban Samaniego, Ángel Paniagua, Juan Acosta and Hugo Ramírez, were the absent officials. Paniagua, strikingly, traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates together with Vice President Hugo Velázquez in a meeting called “Global Leadership Mission”.
Finally, the members of the multibancada voted en bloc, they were: Jorge Brítez (Independiente), Tito Ibarrola (Let’s do it), Carlos Rejala (Let’s do it), Kattya González (PEN) Norma Camacho (PEN), and Rocío Vallejo, Sebastián Villarejo and Sebastian Garcia (PPQ).
