The Diplomat
King Philip VI will travel tomorrow to Ecuador to attend the inauguration ceremony of the President-elect of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso.
At the ceremony, which will take place on Monday, the Monarch will be accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, according to the Directorate General of Communication, Public Diplomacy and Networks.
This will be the fifth inauguration of an Ibero-American president in which Spain will be represented by Philip VI, who already attended in December 2018 that of the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador; in June 2019, that of the president of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo; in March 2020 (very shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out), to that of the president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou; and in November 2020, to that of the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce (in which he was also accompanied by González Laya and by the then second vice-president of the Government, Pablo Iglesias).
As Prince of Asturias of Asturias, the current Monarch attended 69 inaugurations of Ibero-American presidents, but since he acceded to the Throne in 2014 the representation of Spain in those acts has been varying and has been assumed either by his father King Emeritus Juan Carlos -who resigned from all his institutional activities in June 2019- or by the presidents of the Congress of Deputies or the Senate.
Guillermo Lasso, leader of the CREO- Partido Social Cristiano Alliance, replaces Lenin Moreno in the Presidency, after winning 52.4% of the votes in the second round of the presidential elections last April 11. It was his third attempt to reach the Ecuadorian Presidency.
Lasso’s candidacy was widely defeated among Ecuadorian voters living in Spain (where they constitute the third largest immigrant community in the country), to the benefit of the opposition Andres Arauz, candidate of the Unión por la Esperanza party (UNES) and political heir of the former leftist president Rafael Correa. Spain concentrates 71% of the vote of Ecuadorians living in Europe, Asia and Oceania and 43% of the vote of all Ecuadorian expatriates around the world.
