Ecuador declares Mexican ambassador persona non grata after election statements by López Obrador

The government of Daniel Noboa on Thursday declared the Mexican ambassador to Ecuador, Raquel Serur, persona non grata in response to remarks by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in which he implied that Noboa won the elections thanks to the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio at the hands of organized crime hitmen. “It is a measure provided by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and that implies that the ambassador must leave the country in a short period of time. It does not mean breaking diplomatic relations,” the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“There were elections in Ecuador, the candidate of the progressive forces was up, about 10 points,” López Obrador said during his daily morning press conference, referring to Luisa González, the candidate for the Citizen Revolution party led by Rafael Correa, who has shown political affinity with the Mexican president. “Then, a candidate who speaks badly of the candidate who is at the top is suddenly assassinated, and the candidate who was at the top falls, and the candidate who was in second place ascends,” López Obrador continued.

“Creating a rarefied atmosphere of violence, to the extent that the candidates — and this is reported by all the media — [wear] vests to the debates […] Well, the candidate did not win and the most unfortunate thing is that the violence continues, that they just used the moment,” added the Mexican president.

The government of Ecuador issued a response to López Obrador’s statements: “Ecuador is still in mourning over that unfortunate event, which shocked Ecuadorian society and was an attack against democracy, peace, and security.”

The diplomatic impasse between the two countries comes a month after Ecuador requested permission to enter the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest former vice-president Jorge Glas, who has been taking refuge there since December 17 to evade jail over two charges of corruption during his tenure in the Correa government, and another ongoing process being investigated by the Ecuadorian Attorney General’s Office.

Mexico did not authorize the police to enter the embassy to detain Glas. Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena said doing so “would violate the diplomatic immunity of our embassies.” She also stated that her ministry is analyzing Glas’ request for asylum. “We have not granted it, but we have not denied it either,” she said, adding that she was looking into “how much is political persecution and how much is really a legal and corruption problem,” according to the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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