Via – The Guardian

Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, has said he has moved his government from the capital in Quito to the coastal city of Guayaquil amid violent protests over the end of fuel subsidies.

Images from Quito showed protesters hurling petrol bombs and stones, ransacking and vandalising public buildings as well as clashing with the police in running battles late into the night.

“[This] is not a protest of social dissatisfaction faced with a government decision but the looting, vandalism and violence show there is an organised political motive to destabilise the government,” Moreno said in televised address on Monday, flanked by the vice-president, defence minister and military top brass.

Moreno, 66, who has moved away from the leftwing policies of his predecessor and one-time mentor Rafael Correa, has said he will neither tolerate disorder nor overturn the scrapping of fuel subsidies as part of a package of austerity measures.

Moreno accused political opponents of orchestrating an attempted coup and blamed associates of Correa of infiltrating the protests as part of a plot to topple his government, without providing evidence.

In a tweet, Correa said Moreno was “finished” and called for elections.

The president faces a stiff challenge from indigenous groups and others who blocked some roads for a fifth day from Monday morning with stones, tyres and branches. Indigenous-led protests brought down three presidents in the years before Correa’s rule.

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