Guillermo Alberto Santiago Lasso Mendoza (; born 16 November 1955) is an Ecuadorian businessman, banker and politician who served as the 47th president of Ecuador from 2021 to 2023.
Lasso served as Superminister of Economy during the Jamil Mahuad presidency briefly in 1999. He previously served as Governor of Guayas from 1998 to 1999. In 2003, he briefly served as the Itinerant Ambassador of Ecuador during the Lucio Gutiérrez administration. Aside from his political career, Lasso is also a banker and previously was CEO of Banco Guayaquil. During the presidency of Rafael Correa, Lasso became a noted critic of his administration.
A traditional economic liberal, his public agenda includes classical liberal points such as the defence of the division of powers to limit government and of fundamental rights. He has also expressed opinions in favour of lower taxes and is a free-market advocate. Lasso became involved in presidential politics when he founded the Creating Opportunities Party in 2012. He first ran for president in 2013 where he came in a distant second place behind President Correa. He would later run again in the 2017 election, advancing to the run-off, running against former vice president Lenín Moreno, and narrowly losing the election. In his third presidential campaign in 2021, Lasso narrowly advanced to the April run-off round of the election in February and was later elected. Impeachment proceedings against him began later that year over information revealed in the Panama Papers.
Lasso's presidency was noted for COVID-19 vaccination initiatives and economic relief packages through tax increases on the wealthy and funding with the International Monetary Fund. However, the increase of food and fuel prices, as well as his economic policies, culminated in a series of protests across the country. The government's response raised concerns over human rights abuses, with crackdowns on indigenous protests at the hands of security forces, as well as alleged excessive force against journalists. Lasso's approval rating dropped significantly throughout 2022 and in 2023.
In May 2023, the National Assembly officially began a second impeachment proceeding against Lasso. On 17 May, Lasso dissolved the National Assembly by invoking a constitutional measure known as muerte cruzada, triggering the 2023 general election, in which he did not run and was succeeded by Daniel Noboa.
Early life Lasso was born in the Orellana neighborhood of Guayaquil to a middle-class family on 16 November 1955. His parents were Enrique Lasso Alvarado and Nora Mendoza. Lasso has ten siblings and his family lived with financial hardships. At age 15, Lasso worked to earn sufficient money to pay for his baccalaureate service at Colegio La Salle High School. After graduating from high school, he entered the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador in Quito to study economics but left without a degree.
In 1970, Lasso began working part-time at the Guayaquil Stock Exchange and later worked as a collection agency assistant at Casa Möeller Martínez. In 1972, he started working at the financial company Cofiec and then at Finansa in Quito. His first company was Constructora Alfa y Omega, founded with his older brother Enrique Lasso in 1978, when he was 23 years old.Guillermo Lasso. El Ecuador soñado.
In 1977, Lasso met María de Lourdes Alcívar, whom he married in 1980. They have five children: María de Lourdes, Juan, Guillermo Enrique, Santiago and María de las Mercedes.
Business career
During the 1990s, Lasso was named the head of operations in Ecuador for Coca-Cola, following the local bankruptcy of the company in that region. In this role, Lasso was tasked with restructuring the company and bringing it back to financial health. He has since sat on the boards of directors for both Coca-Cola and Mavesa, and also was chairman of the board of directors of the Guayas Transit Commission as well as being a member of the Board of Directors of CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In 1994 Lasso became the CEO of Banco Guayaquil. His brother-in-law Danilo Carrera Drouet previously was CEO of Banco Guayaquil from 1983 to 1984. As a part of his tenure, he founded the Bancos del Barrio program, a community banking initiative that brought in local shopkeepers as economic partners with the bank in planning and strategy. The program was cited by the Inter-American Development Bank as an advancement in grassroots banking penetration strategy. He resigned from his post as Executive President in 2012. Lasso is, through a trust named with his initials, GLM, the largest shareholder in Banco de Guayaquil, where he was executive president for more than 20 years.Mark Weisbrot: Media can't ignore financial scandal in Ecuador's presidential election, TheHill, 24. March 2017 He is also the founder of the Fundación del Barrio.
In March 2020, Lasso created the humanitarian initiative Saving Lives which was an initiative against the COVID-19 pandemic and raised US$8 million to help purchase medical supplies and equipment for the Ecuadorian Health System.
Political career
In 1998, Lasso was appointed as the Governor of Guayas, during which the national government underwent mass privatization of public companies and industries.
Ecuador went through an economic collapse in 1999, following which Lasso was temporarily appointed to the newly created position of Superminister of the Economy, replacing the resigning Ana Lucía Armijos. As finance minister, he served under President Jamil Mahuad and took over negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for economic support. He was also tasked with coordinating government policy in response to the country's economic crisis.
In January 2003, President Lucio Gutiérrez named Lasso as the Ecuadorian Itinerant Ambassador, a position recently established. He would serve in this position until it was disestablished a few months later in April of that year. In anticipation of his first presidential campaign, Lasso founded the center-right party Creating Opportunities which outlined many policies against the Rafael Correa administration.
Early presidential campaigns
In the 2013 general election, he was the presidential candidate for the party Creating Opportunities."In that case the opposition should unite around a single candidate who, according to ARCOP, would be Guillermo Lasso, with 26% of voter preference in the same survey." Correa's reelection is uncertain He landed in second place with 22.68% of valid votes, losing to incumbent President Rafael Correa who received more than double that amount (57.17%).
In early 2017, Lasso launched his second presidential campaign to succeed incumbent President Correa for the conservative Creating Opportunities party in the 2017 presidential elections. His campaign's theme was one of "change" and he pledged to create one million jobs in Ecuador.Guillermo Lasso inicia su campaña electoral visitando puerta a puerta a ciudadanos en Guayaquil , ecuadorinmediato.com, 3 January 2017 (Spanish) Lasso received 48.84% and lost to Lenín Moreno. Following the result, Lasso accused his opponents of electoral fraud and called the incoming administration "illegitimate".
In February 2017, Lasso told The Guardian that should he win the presidential election he would "cordially ask" Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London within 30 days.
2021 general election
Lasso ran as a candidate again in the 2021 general election. He named neurosurgeon Alfredo Borrero as his running-mate in October 2020. In the first round, Lasso was slightly behind indigenous rights activist Yaku Pérez Guartambel but eventually garnered enough votes to secure a narrow second-place finish.
Following his first-round second-place finish, Lasso faced socialist and Rafael Correa ally Andrés Arauz. Arauz was considered to be the front-runner for the presidency and the "handpicked candidate" of former president Correa. In polling before the run-off, Arauz was leading Lasso with one indicating an 82% certainty of Arauz defeating Lasso. Lasso defeated Arauz on 11 April in the run-off election, with many news outlets noting the conservative shift among the Ecuadorian electorate. Lasso won 52.4% of the vote, while Arauz won 47.6%. His victory was also seen as a win for free-market advocates in the country. Some news outlets described Lasso's win as an upset victory.
After his victory, President of Uruguay Luis Lacalle Pou became the first national leader to congratulate Lasso and wished that both Uruguay and Ecuador will "work together" upon his inauguration. President Sebastián Piñera, President Iván Duque Márquez and President Mario Abdo Benítez also congratulated Lasso. Former presidents Mauricio Macri and Felipe Calderón believed Lasso's victory would be beneficial to Ecuador and Latin America. In a statement released by the White House, President Joe Biden congratulated Lasso and Ecuadorian voters for "demonstrating the power of peaceful and inclusive political participation and upholding the ideals of democracy".
Presidency (2021–2023)
Transition After his election victory, bonds for Ecuador soared with many believing that under the Lasso administration, the country will uphold the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Lasso vowed to uphold a $6.5 billion financing agreement with the IMF and to keep payments on Ecuador's overseas bonds. Lasso also noted that his administration would focus on working with the United States, Chile, Brazil and Colombia while distancing from Cuba and Venezuela.
Addressing the Venezuelan presidential crisis, Lasso invited disputed President Juan Guaidó to his inauguration instead of President Nicolás Maduro. Lasso also announced that he will seek to regularize the situation of over 400,000 Venezuelan migrants living in Ecuador. While discussing the migration issue with Colombian President Iván Duque Marquez, Lasso said a possible option would be to grant Venezuelan migrants temporary protected status.
On 15 April, Lasso announced that on his first day in office, he will send a tax cut proposal to the National Assembly in which he will eliminate the 2% sales tax on micro-enterprises and the tax on foreign currency outflows. Lasso will try to lower the value-added tax within the economic incentive plan.
On 20 April, Lasso met with President Lenín Moreno to begin the transitional activities from the previous administration at the Carondelet Palace in Quito. Moreno vowed a transition of a "timely, transparent, truthful and technical manner". Lasso issued that his main priorities after being inaugurated would be to increase the COVID-19 vaccination rates in the country, vowing to vaccinate 9 million people within his first 100 days in office. He had talked to Chilean President Sebastián Piñera about obtaining loans to purchase vaccines with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank. Lassos said he aim for bilateral talks with Russia, China, the United States, the European Union and Chile to try to acquire vaccines.
On 27 April, Lasso named the first members of his cabinet, with women public servants dominating several political positions. He vowed that he would nominate as many women in his cabinet as "women must be in decision-making positions".
On 14 May, the Social Christian Party (PSC) announced that they would no longer support Lasso or his government for not "respecting" a legislative agreement with the Union for Hope Party (UNES) in the National Assembly. The PSC said that they felt that Lasso's government would "[leave out] the 47.5% of the Ecuadorians who voted for UNES or its 49 legislators". The Union for Hope Party is the opposition party during Lasso's administration. Five days later, he received credentials as Constitutional President of Ecuador in anticipation to his inauguration.
Tenure 2021