Although Lenin Moreno managed to win his election campaign, his left party and the party of former president Rafael Correa, Alianza Pais (AP), no longer enjoys a legislative supermajority and has lost several important elections at the municipal and provincial levels.

Because of this, the party’s capacity to govern has been reduced. One reason why: the economic recession, brought on by the precipitous decline in oil prices in 2014, and the resulting budget cuts. According to the finance minister himself, it’s an “austere budget.”

There are three key features of the current Ecuadorian predicament: the tense relationship between social movements and the state; the persistent challenge of left party-building, and the double-edged sword of commodity dependency. Each of the features helps explain the Left’s position — and why it has been unable to move towards the promise of twenty-first century socialism.