The last two weeks have seen a historic popular uprising in Ecuador, with President Lenín Moreno forced to flee the capital and eight people killed in clashes with the police and army. As protesters took over government buildings around Quito, Moreno was forced to declare a national emergency, ordering the military to impose a curfew. While talks on Sunday saw the government concede to demonstrators’ key demands, the situation remains intensely polarized.
The protests are particularly striking because Ecuador in recent years represented one of the beacons of left-wing rule in Latin America, under Rafael Correa’s Alianza PAIS government. His party colleague Lenín Moreno succeeded him as president in 2017 in the name of continuity, but in practice he sharply reversed the government’s previous stances, not only handing back a US military base previously evicted by Correa, but also steering the country back toward austerity and neoliberal reforms.
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