Guayaquil, Ecuador
Reuters

The Ecuadorian government said in a statement on Wednesday that Vice President Veronica Abad’s request to the country’s electoral court to remove President Daniel Noboa from office was an “attempted coup.”

The relationship between Noboa and Abad has been strained since the former began his term in office in November 2023.

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa speaks at his party’s congress where he was elected candidate for the February 2025 presidential election in Quito, Ecuador, on August 9, 2024. IMAGE: Reuters/Karen Toro/File photo

Abad has been living in Tel Aviv since last year, where Noboa sent her to support peace efforts between Israel and Hamas.

According to Abad’s court documents, seen by Reuters and also naming Deputy Minister Esteban Torres, Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld and presidential adviser Diana Jacome, Noboa unfairly marginalized Abad and damaged the equal representation of women in his government.

Noboa “limited my participation as a woman in political decisions of the state and tried to completely remove me from the public life of the country, almost to the point of disappearing the political institutionalization of the vice president,” the file says.

Her role was a “punishment,” Abad added.

“I was essentially exiled to another country in the middle of a war. They took away the security I deserve,” the complaint continues.

The alleged acts of “gender-based political violence” should end with Noboa and the others being dismissed from their posts, a four-year ban from holding public office and a fine of 70 times the monthly minimum wage, Abad’s motion said.

In a statement, the government called Abad’s request a “clumsy attempt at destabilization that shamelessly bears the character of a clear coup attempt.”

Noboa, who served an abbreviated 17-month term and has focused his government on improving rising security and crime, announced this month that he will run for a full term in February elections.