Austerity Bites for Ecuador’s President
Ill-timed cuts to fuel subsidies amounted to a self-inflicted wound.
Fueled by rage.
Photographer: Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images
Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno knows something about indigenous politics. Before rising to the top office in 2017, he served two terms as vice president to Rafael Correa, the disruptive caudillo who tapped the frustrations of excluded indigenous communities to fuel his “Citizens Revolution” before they turned on him. Before that, Moreno saw two other presidents fall, in 1997 and 2000, after they clashed with the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador.
Now Moreno is the target of native wrath. How the usually astute leader failed to foresee the conflagration caused by his Oct. 1 announcement of cuts to fuel subsidies and other austerity measures is a mystery. So are his plans to escape it.