Ecuador has asked Mexico’s ambassador to leave the country amid the deterioration of the two nations’ diplomatic relationship.
Ecuador's foreign ministry called Ambassador Raquel Serur Smeke “persona non grata” and told Reuters she should leave the country “soon.” The announcement was seemingly prompted by recent remarks from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador about the 2023 presidential election.
López Obrador was discussing the assassination of former presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and its impact on the result of the election. Villavicencio was shot to death at a political rally in August, days before the first round of voting,
Ultimately, the left-leaning presidential candidate Luisa Gonzalez lost the October election to Daniel Noboa.
“There were elections in Ecuador, the candidate of the progressive forces (Luisa González) went as 10 points above, 10 points. Like three, four, five more candidates. Then, a candidate who speaks ill of the candidate… is suddenly killed, and… the candidate who was in second goes up,” said López Obrador in a translation of his statement, per El Financiero. “But the candidate who remains after this murder as a suspect continues to campaign in circumstances, I consider, very difficult because imagine all the media, but she goes on and on and on.”
The Ecuadorian foreign ministry said it is still grieving Villavicencio’s murder and that the assignation threatened the country’s “democracy, peace and security,” per ABC News.
The agency noted that it is not severing diplomatic ties with Mexico.
Mexico announced on April 5 that it had granted political asylum to former Ecuadorean Vice President Jorge Glas, who has been convicted of corruption and has been seeking asylum since December. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2017. Glas sought refuge in the Mexican embassy in Ecuador to avoid being taken to prison.
In March, Mexico denied Ecuadorian law enforcement's request to be admitted to the embassy to arrest Glas. Mexico plans to ask the country to allow the former politician to safely leave the country.
López Obrador said Mexico considers “the right of asylum sacred.”
Ecuador's Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld condemned Mexico’s actions as “meddling in international affairs.”
“It is, in a certain way, meddling even in the Ecuadorian Justice because Ecuador considers that, according to the information that the Court, the Prosecutor's Office and other institutions have given us, that Mr. Glas is a criminal for crimes,” she said, per a translation of CNN Espanol.
