Correa: No One Voted For The IMF Or The Increase In Fuel Price

Former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa referred to the complicated situation that his country is going through after Lenin Moreno decreed a “State of Exception” in response to protests against adjustment measures agreed with the IMF.

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"What happens tears the soul," Correa said and also compared this social outbreak with the resistance to economic policies of the government of Mauricio Macri.

"They implement these measures to increase poverty, but they are also inefficient, these measures do not generate growth, employment, anything," Correa stated referring to the reforms of the Argentinian mandatary and the "package" imposed by Moreno last Tuesday, which included an increase in the price of fuel of 123 percent, among other adjustment measures: "These measures failed in Argentina, in Greece and also in Ecuador," he insisted.

The leader of Revolucion Ciudadana, the same movement that supported Moreno's presidential campaign, warned that he "is scared to death for his betrayal to the movement and the Ecuadorean people". Furthermore, Correa questioned that Moreno has taken measures diametrically opposed to his own and to the programmatic proposals that led him to the government: "no one voted for the IMF or the increase in fuel price"

According to the former ruler, the current head of state remains in his position only "because he manages the real actors of power" and also because the media make him look like a hero. "In Ecuador, there have been five clear breaks of the constitutional order but since it is not a leftist government but one sells itself to the United States, they applaud it," he denounced in dialogue with Radio 10.

Correa explained that to read the situation not only in Ecuador but in the region, it is necessary to take into account that no governments apply really neoliberal policies. "When they suit businessmen, they are neoliberal, but when they (businessmen) need rescue, they will look to the State," he states while recalling that that last year Moreno "forgave thousands of millions of dollars to transnational oil companies."

About the State of Exception

Correa stressed that a similar measure has not been taken by a government in Ecuador since 2005, during the administration of Lucio Gutiérrez: "It is for extreme cases, not for one-day protests, because it involves paving homes without a warrant, press censorship, charging special taxes, altering the budget arbitrarily, loss of civil rights, it is very serious."

Following this line, he revealed that the Assembly could revoke it, although he regretted that in this it is an accomplice. "There is a constitutional, democratic way out by advancing elections, but they will not do it because they prefer shock and violence because they know that if there are elections before we will sweep them at the polls," Correa expressed assuring that the process could be carried out similar to the one occurring in Peru.

“The economic powers are those that command and are supporting these measures, those that sustain it artificially. But if the discontent lasts too long even such a servile government can fall and there are constitutional ways for this to happen,” he emphasized.

On the other hand, Correa stressed that the victory of the formula of Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Fernandez in primaries "was a wind of hope" and those same words also extended them to the triumph of Axel Kicillof, representative of the Front of All in Buenos Aires. He clarified that "we must not fall asleep on the laurels, but the chances of victory are very high."