María José Plaza
María José Plaza Gómez de la Torre, known as María José Plaza, is an Ecuadorian politician from Quito. She served in the National Assembly from 2021 to 2023, representing the province of Pichincha.
Born into a political family, with great-grandfather Leonidas Plaza and grandfather Galo Plaza having been presidents of Ecuador, she worked as a company general manager from 1995 to 2021 before entering national politics. She has shown a strong interest in sport and mental health.
In the Assembly, Plaza was Vice President of the Commission on the Right to Health and Sport and served as Secretary of the Parliamentary Group for the Promotion and Popularization of Sport. She also led the Interparliamentary Friendship Group with Spain.
In 2022 she took part in a committee to review a complaint against vice president Jhajaira Urresta; the committee’s authority was disputed by another vice president, Yeseña Guamaní.
In May 2023, President Guillermo Lasso invoked the cross-death clause (Muerte Cruzada), dissolving the National Assembly and requiring members to resign, though they could run again in elections. Plaza resigned under this rule with the option to stand for re-election.
In 2023, her party credited her with helping draft Ecuador’s first mental health law, drawing on the experiences shared by Mexican Sarai Núñez Cerón and Argentine Gisela Scaglia during meetings the previous year, as the country emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:22 (CET).