Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, second in the polls, was shot dead at the end of an electoral rally Wednesday evening in Quito, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso announced.
Mr. Villavicencio, a 59-year-old centrist, journalist by profession, was one of eight candidates in the first round of presidential elections scheduled for August 20.
He was killed as he left a sports hall in the north of the capital, after a campaign meeting.
The prosecution reported “nine injuries, including a candidate for the Assembly, and two police officers”, in addition to the death of one of the assailants, shot dead by security.
Fernando Villavicencio ranked second in voting intentions with around 13%, according to the latest polls from the Cedatos institute, behind lawyer Luisa Gonzalez (26.6%), close to former left-wing president Rafael Correa.
The previous week, Mr. Villavicencio had reported threats against him and his campaign team, allegedly made by the leader of a criminal gang linked to drug trafficking currently in prison.
“Despite new threats, we will continue to fight for the brave people of our
“I am outraged and shocked by the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio,” President Guillermo Lasso wrote on X. “I assure you that this crime will not go unpunished,” he promised.
“Organized crime has gone very far, but the full weight of the law will fall on them,” he added.
Mr. Lasso convened an emergency meeting in the evening of senior security officials and public institutions such as the National Court of Justice (CNJ), the highest court in the country.
“I am really hurt and very concerned for Ecuador,” said CNJ President Ivan Saquicela.
In recent years, Ecuador has been confronted with a wave of violence linked to drug trafficking which, in the midst of the electoral process, has already led to the death of a mayor and a candidate for Parliament.
The president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Diana Atamaint, had also indicated on Wednesday that several members of this authority responsible for supervising the ballot had received death threats.
Ahead of local elections in February, two mayoral candidates were assassinated.
The number of homicides per 100,000 population stood at 25 in 2022 in the country, almost double compared to 2021.
The main local newspaper, El Universo, claimed that Mr Villavicencio had been murdered “using the method of the sicarios (hit men), with three bullets to the head”.
Physician Carlos Figueroa, a friend of the victim present at the scene at the time of the assassination, told the press that he had heard around 30 gunshots.
“They ambushed him outside” the room where he held his meeting, explained Mr. Figueroa. “Some (of the witnesses) believed in fireworks”.
Police detonated an explosive device that had been planted in the area of ??the attack, said Alain Luna, head of investigations for the security forces.
When he was the chairman of the committee in charge of taxation in the Assembly dissolved by Mr. Lasso in May, Fernando Villavicencio regularly denounced cases of corruption, as he was used to during his career as a journalist.
In particular, he contributed, in a journalistic investigation, to uncovering a vast network of corruption involving ex-president Rafael Correa (2007-2017) who was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison. Mr. Correa is a refugee in Belgium.
After the death of Mr. Villavicencio, Luisa Gonzalez, the left-wing indigenous leader Yaku Perez (third in the polls with 12.5% ??of the voting intentions), the right-wing former vice-president Otto Sonnenholzner (4th at 7.5 %) and Jan Topic (right, 6th at 4.4%), announced the suspension of their campaign.
The death of Mr. Villavicencio should not lead to the postponement of the election, affirmed the constitutionalist Ismael Quintana on X, explaining that “it is up to the political organization to replace him with another candidate”.
08/10/2023 06:22:22 – Quito (AFP) – © 2023 AFP