The assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio not only represents a pre-election earthquake with unpredictable consequences when there are only nine days left before the polls open in Ecuador. The enormous impact of the attack also destroys the hope of those who refused to accept the evidence of the deep-rooted power of drug trafficking and organized crime, which in a few years has pushed the Andean country to rub shoulders with the Colombia of other times and the Mexico of today. .
“We are not going to back down, the State is firm and democracy does not give in to the brutality of this murder. We are not going to hand over the democratic institutions to organized crime even if it is disguised as political organizations. Faced with the loss of a democrat and a fighter, the elections are not suspended,” said President Guillermo Lasso, who throughout the legislature had the parliamentary support of Villavicencio in several transcendental votes.
The president declared three days of national mourning and decreed a state of emergency nationwide for 60 days. Throughout the day, rumors of a “step forward” by the military and police spread on social networks and in the media.
The worldwide condemnation of the crime transmitted international solidarity to the Government of Quito, but also concern about the “attack on democracy” in the American country. “A brazen act of violence,” Washington specified, while Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union, highlighted the “attack against the institutions.”
The candidate had denounced in the previous hours the threats from the head of the Los Choneros gang, associated with the Sinaloa Cartel. Villavicencio felt he was in the crosshairs of different dark powers and for this reason he repeated a phrase to his friends in the guild: “If they are going to kill me, let them kill me.” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador assured this Thursday that there are no indications that the Mexican cartel is behind the attack.
The hitmen surprised the journalist, recognized for being the main symbol of the fight against corruption and against organized gangs, on Wednesday night, at the end of his rally in a sports center in the north of Quito. Villavicencio, without a bulletproof vest but surrounded by police and security personnel, got into his vehicle. At that moment the shots began to sound, three of them hit him in his body.
According to different versions collected at the scene, the hitmen fled on a motorcycle, but one of them lost his balance and fell to the ground, which one of the agents took advantage of to hit him. The version transmitted by the Attorney General’s Office indicates that “the suspect was injured during the exchange of bullets with Security personnel, was apprehended and transferred badly injured to the Flagrancy Unit in Quito. An ambulance from the Fire Department confirmed his death.” .
In a video recorded from a nearby building, it is observed how the alleged hitman is violently beaten by an agent and by several people who arrive after him. In one of the images, the subject appears to be hit by a projectile, but the Prosecutor’s Office has not confirmed the circumstances. In total, two dead and a dozen injured, including three policemen.
So far there are six detainees in the investigation headed by prosecutors, as confirmed by the police commander. Two of the captured were recognized at the scene. All of them are Colombian and would be part of a command at the service of one of the drug cartels, which the investigators did not detail. A seventh commando member killed during the shooting was also Colombian.
Among the weapons seized from a vehicle were a rifle, a submachine gun, four pistols and three grenades. One of these was launched at the scene, but it did not explode.
“My husband was assassinated because he was the only one who faced the political mafias and drug traffickers in this country,” reacted Verónica Sarauz, a woman from Villavicencio.
“Damn this government, it did nothing to protect it. We hold the government, Correa and all his criminal gangs responsible,” added Patricia, Villavicencio’s sister. The journalistic investigations of the assassinated leader regarding the bribes of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht and the corrupt plots of the citizen revolution led to the eight-year sentence against Rafael Correa, today on the run from the Ecuadorian Justice.
The former president jumped into the arena of social networks by assuring that his country has become a “failed state.” The repetition of some of his phrases against Villavicencio, his political nemesis, provoked the ire of his followers.
The disappearance of the candidate of Gente Buena and the centrist Construye crushes in this way the electoral scenario drawn to date. According to different surveys, the revolutionary candidate, Luisa González, has the support of a third of the voters, which would force a second round.
Behind the ultracorreísta appear, with very little difference between them, the indigenous leader Yaku Pérez, the centrist OttoSonnenholzner and Villavicencio. The legislation provides for the assassinated candidate to be replaced by another leader of his movement, although his face will continue to appear on the ballot paper, since there is no time to change it.
“They took our brave president from us, Ecuador does not deserve to lose you like this,” stressed environmentalist Andrea González, a candidate for vice president in Villavicencio’s candidacy.
“The issue of the heavy hand must gain even more importance in the electorate,” confirmed to EL MUNDO the political scientist John Polga-Hecimovich, aware that the populist Jan Topic, a former mercenary in the wars in Syria and Ukraine, has lost steam after a brilliant start. “Today more than ever the need to act with a strong hand against crime is reiterated,” Topic bet after the attack.
