Guillermo Lasso

Guillermo Alberto Santiago Lasso Mendoza (; born 16 November 1955) is an Ecuadorian businessman, banker, writer and politician who is the president-elect of Ecuador. He was a candidate in the 2021 general election, defeating Andrés Arauz in what some news outlets called an upset victory and a conservative shift among the electorate. He founded the Creating Opportunities Party in 2012 shortly before his first presidential campaign.
Lasso served as Superminister of Economy during the Jamil Mahuad presidency briefly in 1999. He previously served as Governor of Guayas from 1998 until 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 served as CEO of Banco Guayaquil. During the presidency of Rafael Correa, Lasso became a noted critic of his administration.
Lasso became involved in presidential politics, when he first ran for president in the 2013. Lasso came in a distant second place behind President Correa, who won by a landslide. He would later run again in the 2017 election, where he advanced to the run-off running against former Vice President Lenin Moreno and narrowly lost the election winning 48.84% of the vote against Moreno's 51.16%. His third presidential campaign in 2021, Lasso narrowly advanced to the April run-off round of the election in February and later was elected in April.
A 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 reducing taxes and is a free-market advocate.
Early life.
Lasso was born in Guayaquil to a middle-class family in the Orellana neighborhood. His parents were Enrique Lasso Alvarado and Nora Mendoza. Lasso has ten siblings and his family lived with financial hardships. At aged 15, Lasso would work 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.
In 1977, Lasso met María de Lourdes Alcívar, whom he would marry 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 served as Chairman of the board of directors of the Guayas Transit Commission as well as being a member of the Board of Directors of the Andean Development Corporation.
In 1994 Lasso became the CEO of Banco Guayaquil. 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 also the founder of the Fundacion del Barrio.
In March 2020, Lasso created the humanitarian initiative Saving Lives which was an initiative against the COVID-19 pandemic and raised 8 million dollars to help purchase medical supplies and equipment to 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. 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%). Lasso is, through a trust named with his initials, GLM, the largest shareholder in Banco de Guayaquil, where he has been executive president for more than 20 years.
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 more jobs in Ecuador. 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 said in an interview with a British newspaper 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.
President-elect of Ecuador.
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 a 82% certainty of Arauz defeating Lasso. Lasso would defeat 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% of the vote. 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. Both former President Mauricio Macri and President 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".
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 and not invite President Nicolás Maduro. Lasso also announced that he will seek to regularize the situation of over 400,000 Venezuelan migrants living in Ecuador.
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 Lenin 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. The following week, Lasso named the first members of his cabinet, with women public servants dominating several political positions. He vowed that he would nominate as much 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 PAIS Alliance is the opposition party during Lasso's administration. Five days later, he received credentials as Constitutional President of Ecuador in anticipation to his inauguration.
Inauguration.
Following his victory in April 2021, Lasso will be inaugurated as the 47th president of Ecuador on 24 May 2021. He will be the country's first center-right president since Sixto Durán Ballén, who served from 1992 to 1996.
Political positions.
Lasso said that "life has made [him] liberal". However, when asked if he identified with that term, he replied that he does not place himself on any ideological ground, but believes in "good ideas". He responded in the same way when asked if he was from the right or the left. His public agenda includes classic liberal points such as the defence of the division of powers to limit government and of fundamental rights such as freedom of the press. 
He has also expressed himself in favour of reducing taxes, state debt, and the minimum wage with the announced aim of increasing productivity and employment in the private sector. On the tax on capital outflows, he thinks that it is a tax on capital income, and he has committed himself to eliminating at least nine taxes if he is elected president. Lasso also was accused of supporting reducing the minimum wage from $400 per month in 2020 to $120 per month; however, that was a statement taken out of context from an interview he gave in March 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, while suggesting letting businesses recruit unemployed poor single mothers so they could at least get some income.
Lasso has declared himself an admirer of José María Aznar's Silent Revolution, a series of reforms implemented by the former Prime Minister of Spain. On foreign trade, he has said that he favours a greater opening of trade with Ecuador's major partners, the United States and the European Union so that national producers have greater export opportunities.
Lasso was a supernumerary of Opus Dei. On abortion, he has said in general terms that he "believes in life from conception and that is a principle I will not change". In April 2021, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of abortions in rape cases, Lasso said that he had "full respect" of the ruling and vowed to respect the separate political branches.
On other issues such as marriage between people of the same sex, he has said that he is in favour of allowing civil union but differentiating it from conventional marriage. On immigration, he has proposed controls for those with criminal records, but to facilitate the entry of foreigners for tourism, investment, or humanitarian reasons. On the decriminalisation of drugs, he maintains that a national debate is necessary to propose alternatives in the face of the failure of the war on drugs; on issues of environmental conservation, he states that he will keep the Yasuní Amazon reserve free of oil exploitation.
He also declares himself an enemy of the 21st-century socialism promoted from Venezuela and Cuba, whose Ecuadorian chapter identifies with the Citizens' Revolution led by Rafael Correa. Lasso has called ALBA a "third world empire". In response to his criticism of the Ecuadorian government's anti-capitalist discourse and measures, President Correa and other officials and members of Alianza PAIS have questioned Lasso by portraying him as a representative of the political forces that governed Ecuador before his party came to power in 2007, and pointing out that Lasso's tax proposals are irresponsible with the state budget. Also, President Rafael Correa claims Lasso had a hand in Ecuador's financial crisis of 1999.
Health.
In 2018, Lasso underwent a surgical procedure on his spinal cord at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States following a back injury from a fall at a pilgrimage in Spain in 2013. The operation required him to use a forearm crutch since the operation.
Writing.
In 2011, Lasso published the book "Cartas a Mis Hijos", which translates to "Letters to my Children", which contains lessons he developed from his time working in business and highlights recommendations for the economic development of Ecuador. Among his ideas, Lasso discusses the need for greater sovereignty over parts of the national economy. The book advocates for the Ecuadorian government to develop policies that create more economic opportunities for its citizens.
Soon after the release of "Cartas a Mis Hijos", former Prime Minister of Spain José María Aznar stated the book held key insights into what is needed for development. During the book launch event, former Ecuadorian President Gustavo Noboa was present to show support for the project, along with other national politicians. Following its publications, Lasso performed policy speeches and used the plans in the book as a basis for a presidential political campaign.
In 2012, he then published the book "Otro Ecuador Es Posible".