Nearly three weeks of striking bus drivers and roadblocks by angry farmers have put Ecuador President Daniel Noboa in one of the tensest moments of his presidency.
The outcry comes in response to the government’s increase in diesel fuel costs, after a subsidy was cut last month.
With no signs of dialogue after 18 days, one protester has been killed, numerous protesters and authorities injured, and more than 100 people arrested.
The army announced a large deployment to the capital on Thursday, saying it would prevent vandalism and destruction of property. As many as 5,000 troops were being deployed after dozens of protesters had marched at various sites in the city earlier in the day.
Though the demonstrations called for by Ecuador’s largest Indigenous organisation, CONAIE, are supposed to be nationwide, the most acute impact has been in the northern part of the country, especially Imbabura province, where Noboa won in April’s election with 52 percent of the vote.
On one side is “a president who assumes that after winning the elections he has all of the power at his disposal, who has authoritarian tendencies and no disposition for dialogue”, said Farith Simon, a law professor at the Universidad San Francisco in Quito.
On the other side, he said, is “an Indigenous sector that has shown itself to be uncompromising and is looking to co-govern through force”.
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