The decision by the current government of Ecuador to revoke Julian Assange’s political asylum and hand him over to British police has paved the way for the WikiLeaks founder to be extradited to the US, an intention that was confirmed in June 2019 by Downing Street.
However, this decision is not unrelated to recent events in Ecuador. In 2017 PAIS Alliance candidate Lenin Moreno was elected president of Ecuador. As he took over from Rafael Correa, his predecessor, Moreno’s victory was seen as a continuation of the so-called Citizen Revolution Movement. However — and much to everyone’s surprise — he quickly turned against his former allies, reversing the political process they had begun ten years earlier and even persecuting them.
As a result, former president Correa himself remains exiled in Brussels and several prominent former cabinet members are either in jail or have fled the country. VilaWeb tracked down former Foreign, Defence and Economy minister Ricardo Patiño for this interview. Patiño was the president of PAIS Alliance during the clash with Lenin Moreno, after the latter was elected president of Ecuador.
