Weekly Report - 19 March 2015 (WR-15-11)

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has been the most vocal supporter of his Venezuelan peer Nicolás Maduro since the outbreak of heightened diplomatic tension with the US in recent weeks. This rhetorical solidarity comes as no surprise given many of the professed ideological similarities between Correa’s Citizens’ Revolution and Maduro’s Bolivarian Revolution. But there is a domestic subtext too. Correa has expressed his concern in recent months about a “conservative restoration” in Ecuador and the traditionally diffuse political opposition has reacted to the repression of prominent opposition politicians in Venezuela by attempting to set aside its differences to “defend democracy” and “unite” to confront Correa in the 2017 presidential elections.