Lenin Moreno and his cape on the right | Siet …

Today, the President of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, confirmed once again that he formed a government diametrically opposed to that of his predecessor, Rafael Correa, and that he was at the antipodes of the citizen revolution that he had formerly integrated and directed. As if doubts persisted, Moreno executed an order he had been badyzing since his arrival to the presidency: not only did he withdraw the political asylum from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, but he also suspended nationality that he had granted her at the end of 2017.

Moreno, who came forward with the support of the Citizen Revolution after winning the presidency, applied neoliberal and unpopular policies that contradicted not only his program proposal during the campaign, but also the government decisions that he made. he had accompanied in the past of the vice-presidency. What other steps did Moreno take to stand out from Correa's legacy and lead a government more aligned with conservative forces than on the progressives he claimed to represent?

AGREEMENT WITH THE IMF

On February 14, Valentine's Day, Moreno opened the door to the IMF and began negotiations to seek economic help, while social movements and unions called for his resignation with a general strike for his "economic packages" . A few days later, the president has confirmed an agreement with various financial institutions for $ 10 billion over the next three years, of which 4200 million correspond to the IMF. This is in addition to the nearly $ 6 billion that will be provided by the Latin American Development Bank (CAF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Latin America Reserve Fund (FLAR) and the World Bank.

STATE REDUCTION

Moreno eliminated at least 33 public institutions in August 2018 and also halved the number of ministries, from 40 to 20 state portfolios. Among the suppressed institutions are the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Communication. It also merged the Ministry of Foreign Trade with the Ministry of Industries.

REGIONAL DISINTEGRATION

In international politics, Moreno was one of the main culprits of the fracture of Unasur who had paved the way to the right, Prosur. Ecuador was the second country, after Colombia, to request the final exit of Unasur, but also asked for the return of the headquarters of the General Secretariat building in Quito to hand over to the indigenous University of their country. He also announced that he would remove from the site a statue of former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner. "We will stop participating in all the activities of this organization, we will not record a cent more, nor an additional contribution to the budget of the organization," said Moreno in a radio and television on the 13th. March. In this context, he announced his participation in the first Prosur summit held in Chile, a creation that he celebrated as an organization "without ideologies or bureaucracy". Despite the initial efforts to present it as a forum "without ideologies", the fact is that Prosur initially adhered to most of the conservative governments of the region, united today also in their criticisms of the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro, that they describe as follows: illegitimate and to whom it has been forbidden to participate.

ELIMINATION OF TAXES AND FLEXIBILIZATION OF WORK

One of the first steps of the president was to abolish taxes on the richest who had been so important for correismo as part of the redistribution of resources: he repealed the law of surplus value, the rights of succession, property taxes rural areas and ordered the review of consulting services and payments for overtime and travel expenses in the public sector.

ECONOMIC PACKAGES

Moreno has implemented a series of adjustment or "austerity" measures in the midst of the economic crisis that sparked mbadive demonstrations against him. To justify them, he claimed to have received "a broken country, economically, with a total debt of nearly 60 billion dollars". The biggest dissatisfaction generated between Ecuadorians was the rise in the price of fuel. The increase in the price of gasoline supplied by the government is due to a partial reduction of the state subsidy.

CRISIS IN VENEZUELA

Contrary to the cordial relationship that the citizen revolution had with the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, Moreno recognized the self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaidó, and even received it at the beginning of March on a base from the city of Salinas to express his support. "We are about to come out of this abyss into which we have placed this so-called 21st century socialism," said the president urging Guaidó to continue "this crusade of the profound transformation needed by the Venezuelan people".

MIGRATORY MEASURES

During his tenure, he adopted three concrete measures relating to Venezuelan immigration, questioned by the government of Nicolás Maduro, who considered it to be xenophobic and stigmatizing. Taking his distance with the friendship between the two countries, he regulated the requirement of a judicial certificate to enter the country, created brigades to supervise the employment situation Venezuelans in Ecuador and announced a census of foreigners in the country. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza has accused the Moreno government of "inciting fascist persecution of Venezuelans in Ecuador".