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FORMER Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa called his successor Lenin Moreno a “traitor” on Wednesday over the jailing of Vice-President Jorge Glas.
In a television interview with CNN Spanish, Mr Correa deepened his row with his Pais Alliance party colleague, saying: “I now realise that he’s a compulsive liar.”
Mr Glas was remanded in custody on Monday over allegations he took bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which is implicated in huge government kickback scandals across the Americas.
The vice-president, who has held the post since 2013, when Mr Correa was in office, was suspended by Mr Moreno on August 3.
On Wednesday, the president named Urban Development and Housing Minister Maria Alejandra Vicuna as Mr Glas’s interim replacement.
Mr Moreno, elected earlier this year, served as Mr Correa’s first vice-president from 2007 to 2013.
But Mr Correa told CNN’s Fernando del Rincon that Mr Moreno was a “wolf in sheep's clothing,” complaining that he and his allies “were never with us, but were with the opposition.
“Moreno cheated me for 10 years. He is a person that was with the opposition,” he said.
The former president reiterated his previously stated contention that Mr Glas was the innocent victim of “a vulgar political persecution.”
He compared the manner of the vice-president’s ousting to the tactics “used in Brazil against Dilma" — referring to last August’s “legislative coup” against Brazilian left-wing president Dilma Rousseff, the successor to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“Glas is a person that does not steal or allow theft, but for this one makes enemies,” Mr Correa said.
