On the front line of the fight against corruption, the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio had denounced irregularities in public contracts a few days before being assassinated in the middle of the electoral campaign.
A journalist by profession, one of his main feats of arms was to have sent former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) to the dock thanks to one of his investigations. With his colleague and friend Christian Zurita, he revealed the existence of a vast network of corruption, bringing the former head of state and government officials to justice for having received bribes. wine from businessmen.
Mr. Correa, a refugee in Belgium and whom Fernando Villavicencio nicknamed “the fugitive”, was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison in this case.
But, because of his work, Mr. Villavicencio has himself been in the sights of the courts.
In 2014, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted him protective measures after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for insulting Rafael Correa. He then holed up in the Amazon rainforest to escape his pain.
Two years later, a judge ordered him imprisoned for revealing secret information he allegedly obtained by hacking into emails from the Correa administration, with the aim of fueling an investigation into corruption in the oil sector.
This time he took refuge in Lima, Peru, until his return to Ecuador in 2017.
The week before his death, the candidate had twice reported threats against him and his campaign team. He was under police protection when he was assassinated at the exit of an electoral meeting in the north of Quito.
“Despite new threats, we will continue to fight for the brave people of our
Aged 59, Mr. Villavicencio was given second place in the latest polls by the Cedatos institute for the presidential election, credited with around 13% of the vote behind Luisa Gonzalez (26.6%), a close friend of Mr. Correa.
This centrist was running for the presidency of his country for the first time and was one of the eight candidates running on August 20 for the first round of this election caused by the dissolution of the Assembly in May, by the hand of President Lasso.
Among other campaign proposals, Fernando Villavicencio wanted the construction of a maximum security prison in the Amazon.
“My government will be a government with a firm hand against violence, but we will mainly attack unemployment,” he recently promised to the press.
A native of the Andean town of Alausi, in the province of Chimborazo (south), he launched a crusade against corruption in the oil industry after having worked there for the national company Petroecuador.
There, his mission was to go through the impact studies of the sector. In the end, he is only “producing notes against (his) own company”.
And then to leave oil aside to dedicate himself to journalism on the sites Plan V, Mil Hojas and Periodismo de Investigacion.
Nicknamed “Don Villa” by his supporters, he had managed to obtain a seat as a deputy in the Assembly and the post of president of the Commission for Taxation. He thus contributed to pushing President Lasso to his limits, threatened with dismissal by Parliament – finally dissolved – for an alleged corruption case.
Mr. Villavicencio’s final offensive was directed against ex-vice president Jorge Glas, a former minister under Mr. Correa, and against Petroecuador, for alleged illegal contracts allowing the awarding of 21 oil wells to companies foreign.
08/10/2023 05:54:43 – Quito (AFP) – © 2023 AFP