
QUITO – Ecuadorian President-elect Lenin Moreno presented on Tuesday, one day before taking office, a Cabinet designed to seek “unity, consensus and dialogue” among Ecuadorians.
About 50 ministers, secretaries, advisers and other authorities will form the new Cabinet, in which there are none of the coordinating ministries established by outgoing President Rafael Correa, including the controversial Wellbeing Secretariat.
The announcement comes as the first foreign leaders attending the Wednesday inauguration at Parliament began arriving in the capital.
The first foreign dignitaries to arrive were Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes and Cuban Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, and during the day on Tuesday Chilean leader Michelle Bachelet and Peru’s Pedro Pablo Kuczynski are slated to come in.
According to Moreno’s press team, with the formulation of the new Cabinet, the administration – which will be in power until 2021 – is seeking “unity, consensus and dialogue.”
Moreno “will continue the process of political transformation and edification in a fairer, more caring and inclusive country via the creation of a network of comprehensive social protection, the eradication of poverty, the fight against corruption and pushing the economy,” the press team said.
The group of cabinet officers, including national secretaries and ministers, is comprised of 18 men and 10 women, who will manage their respective government portfolios.
According to the list of cabinet personnel, as released by Moreno on Twitter, Maria Fernanda Espinosa will serve as foreign minister, a post she occupied during Correa’s administration making her a key official in the new government.
The other important portfolios – Interior, Finance, Defense, Hydrocarbons and Education – will be headed by Cesar Navas, Carlos Alberto de la Torre, Ivan Carvajal, Carlos Perez and Fander Falconi, respectively.
Moreno emphasized the “inclusive” and “participatory” character of his new government team, which includes professionals from different sectors and organizations.
The Cabinet composition comes in response to the institutional reorganization of the executive branch, suppressing and merging administrative entities and operations “to raise state efficiency and strengthen the fulfillment of sectorial agendas as well as the National Development Plan ... (for) 2017-2021.”
Moreno is eliminating the six coordinating ministries and the National Administration Secretariat, the functions of which will be reassigned to other government entities.
The ministers and other top officials will be sworn in on Wednesday in a public ceremony on the Plaza de la Independencia, before the Carondelet presidential palace.