Candidates for the presidency of Ecuador ended their campaigns on Thursday, at the end of a day marked by tributes to the pretender assassinated on August 9 in the capital Quito, when he was among the favorites.
Dressed in a bulletproof vest and wearing a helmet, his replacement, journalist Christian Zurita, led the tributes to his former colleague and friend Fernando Villavicencio, who was shot by a Colombian sicario (hitman) at the coming out of a meeting.
Mr Zurita, who was therefore nominated as the candidate of the centrist Construye party, took part in a Catholic mass attended by hundreds of well-wishers wearing white shirts.
Elsewhere, in the locality of Duran (south-west), the right-wing candidate Daniel Noboa denounced an attempted attack on the procession he was leading to close his campaign.
“Thank God we came out unscathed. Intimidation and fear have no place in the country we want and are committed to changing once and for all,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The police and the Ministry of the Interior, however, contradicted his version and are investigating whether it was not rather an exchange of fire between offenders.
A member of Mr. Noboa’s campaign team told AFP that people had opened fire as their vehicles passed.
For her part, the left-wing candidate Luisa Gonzalez, first in the polls, was in Guayaquil (southwest) to convince voters to choose her, who is close to former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017).
It is also in this port city that supporters of former right-wing leader Otto Sonnenholzner gathered for the latest campaign events.
The left-wing indigenous leader, Yaku Perez, was in the capital Quito, also protected by a bulletproof vest. He is running for the presidency for the second time.
Christian Zurita suspects organized crime of being behind the murder of his friend. In total, six Colombians were arrested and a seventh was killed by Mr. Villavicencio’s bodyguards.
“I’m pretty sure he was assassinated because he said he would militarize the ports, and we’re going to keep that as a principle,” Zurita told the international press on Thursday.
Before his death, Fernando Villavicencio said he had received threats from “Fito”, the leader of the “Los Choneros” gang. This gang has had ties to the dissident Colombian FARC guerrillas and the Mexican Sinaloa cartel.
MM. Zurita and Villavicencio had previously worked together as journalists and uncovered cases during Mr. Correa’s tenure.
He was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison. He is a refugee in Belgium.
Christian Zurita presents himself as the suitable successor to Fernando Villavicencio, affirming that not having replaced him would have meant betraying “his struggle” and “his name”.
According to the Cedatos institute, Mr. Villavicencio was second in the polls with 12.5% ??of voting intentions, behind Luisa Gonzalez, credited with 24%.
08/18/2023 06:28:12 – Quito (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
