[Kurtz79]

"Why even offer asylum then?"

The decision of offering asylum to such a controversial figure is clearly political, and Ecuador's president has changed since then...

From what I read, since his election the current one (Moreno) pretty much has been reversing the legislation passed during the government of the former one (Correa), which is a strong supporter of Assange.

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-47902702

(in Spanish, note that in the article Correa says that one of the latest "leaks" involved people close to Moreno)

[mc32]

Wasn’t that guy Correa’s (prev prez) Vice President as well as anointed successor? Did they have a falling out of some sort?

[Kurtz79]

It seems so :

"(Moreno) He was nominated as the candidate for Correa's PAIS Alliance, a center-left, democratic socialist[1] political party, in the 2017 presidential election and won a narrow victory in Ecuador's second round of voting on 2 April 2017.[2] However, after his election Moreno radically shifted his political stance, breaking with Correa's legacy and making radical changes to both internal and foreign policy.

...

Within months of winning the election, Moreno started moving away from his election platform,[18] thus igniting a feud with ex-president Rafael Correa.

Later that same year, through a referendum,[19] Moreno reversed several key pieces of legislation, passed by the Correa administration, that targeted wealthy individuals and banks, reversed a previous referendum allowing indefinite re-election, thereby blocking future electoral bids by Correa, and established the Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social [es] (CPCCS-T), which has supra-constitutional powers,[20] to "evaluate control authorities and judges", with the aim of removing what remains of Correa's influence."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len%C3%ADn_Moreno

[BLKNSLVR]

I haven't looked further into the nature of what you've described, but if that's all factual then that's a pretty damning set of actions.

Contrasting the first paragraph of the "IMF $4.2b loan" article:

The International Monetary Fund on Monday approved a $4.2-billion, three-year loan for Ecuador, part of a broader aid package to help support the government's economic reform program.

With this from wikipedia:

Moreno reversed several key pieces of legislation, passed by the Correa administration, that targeted wealthy individuals and banks

absolutely screams US influence conspiracy.

People don't change their politics that extremely unless it's worth their while.