“It’s as if a family has lost half of what it needs to live,” President Lenín Moreno said on 19 May while announcing sweeping cost-cutting measures in the face of US$8bn of lost income as a result of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and a plunge in oil prices. Although Moreno sought to downplay it, one of the measures introduces market-based fuel pricing, which provided the catalyst for violent social protests led by the indigenous organisation Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Conaie) last October. End of preview - This article contains approximately 1360 words.
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