A presidential candidate in Ecuador who had been outspoken in regards to the hyperlink between organized crime and authorities officers was assassinated Wednesday night at a political rally within the capital, simply days earlier than voting begins in an election that has been dominated by issues over drug-related violence.
The candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist, was gunned down outdoors a highschool in Quito after chatting with younger supporters. A suspect was killed within the melee that adopted, and 9 different individuals have been shot, officers mentioned.
“When he stepped outdoors the door, he was met with gunfire,” Carlos Figueroa, who labored for Mr. Villavicencio’s marketing campaign and was on the rally, mentioned of the candidate. “There was nothing to be accomplished, as a result of they have been pictures to the top.”
Mr. Villavicencio, 59, was polling close to the center of an eight-person race. He was among the many most vocal candidates on the problem of crime and state corruption.
It was the primary assassination of a presidential candidate in Ecuador and got here lower than a month after the mayor of Manta, a port metropolis, was fatally shot throughout a public look. Ecuador, as soon as a comparatively secure nation, has been consumed by violence associated to narco-trafficking within the final 5 years.
“Outraged and shocked by the assassination,” President Guillermo Lasso wrote on the social media platform X, previously often called Twitter, late Wednesday, blaming the loss of life on “organized crime.”
The nationwide prosecutor’s workplace mentioned on the identical platform {that a} suspect had been shot and apprehended amid crossfire with safety forces, and had died shortly afterward. The workplace later mentioned the authorities had carried out raids and detained six individuals in reference to the assassination.
The 9 different individuals shot included two cops and a candidate for a Nationwide Meeting seat, based on the prosecutor’s workplace. There was no instant details about the situation of the 9 individuals; it was unclear late Wednesday night time whether or not any of them had died.
The killing is a serious blow to a nation that was already struggling deep financial, social and political upheaval.
“Electorally talking, this 12 months is probably the most violent in our historical past,” mentioned Arianna Tanca, an Ecuadorean political scientist. “I feel that what’s going to change is the way in which we conceive of politics. I feel that any more it turns into a high-risk career.”
Ecuador, on South America’s western edge, witnessed a rare transformation between 2005 and 2015 as hundreds of thousands of individuals rose out of poverty, using the wave of an oil increase whose earnings have been poured into training, well being care and different social packages.
However extra just lately, the nation has been dominated by an more and more highly effective narco-trafficking business, with overseas drug mafias becoming a member of forces with native jail and road gangs, unleashing a wave of violence in contrast to something within the nation’s current historical past. Murder charges are at file ranges.
In the present day, the violence is commonly horrific and public, meant to induce concern and exert management: There are common reviews of automotive bombings, beheadings and kids being gunned down outdoors their colleges.
Complicating the scenario, Mr. Lasso disbanded the nation’s opposition-led Nationwide Meeting in Might, a drastic transfer he made as he confronted impeachment proceedings over accusations of embezzlement.
The transfer, which is allowed beneath the Structure, meant that new elections for president and legislative representatives can be held. The vote during which Mr. Villavicencio was purported to compete is ready for Aug. 20.
Mr. Villavicencio, who had labored as a journalist, activist and legislator, gained prominence as an opponent of correísmo, the leftist motion of former President Rafael Correa, who served from 2007 to 2017 and nonetheless holds main political sway in Ecuador. A presidential candidate who has Mr. Correa’s backing, Luisa González, is main within the polls.
Between 2007 and 2017, Mr. Villavicencio wrote usually about alleged corruption within the Correa authorities, which made him the topic of authorized persecution and loss of life threats. He briefly sought political asylum in Peru.
In 2017, Mr. Villavicencio efficiently ran for a seat within the Nationwide Meeting, the place he served till the legislature was dissolved by Mr. Lasso.
Mr. Correa, writing on the X platform late Wednesday, lamented Mr. Villavicencio’s loss of life. “Ecuador has change into a failed state,” he wrote. “My solidarity along with his household and with all of the households of the victims of violence.”
Grace Jaramillo, an Ecuadorean professor of political science on the College of British Columbia who went to school with Mr. Villavicencio, remembered working in opposition to him in an election for pupil physique president. He ran as a Trotskyist, and he or she represented a celebration referred to as Democracy in Our Home; each misplaced, to a pupil representing the Chinese language Communist Social gathering.
“He was actually a fighter on a regular basis and superb at arguments,” Ms. Jaramillo mentioned. “An arguer, a challenger. He used to like full of life discussions.”
After college, she mentioned, Mr. Villavicencio grew to become a union chief at Petroecuador, the nation’s nationwide oil firm. Quickly after Mr. Correa got here to energy, he began writing about authorities corruption as a political journalist.
Ms. Jaramillo mentioned she met with him on the time to provide him recommendation. His home had been raided, and he had no cash to struggle the costs that had been introduced in opposition to him, she mentioned.
“He was downtrodden. He felt bullied and diminished,” she added.
However a number of weeks in the past, when she noticed him on a visit to Quito, he was “actually hopeful and enthusiastic,” Ms. Jaramillo mentioned. “He was satisfied that he might make it to the second spherical” of the presidential election.
His loss of life, she mentioned, shall be “a long-lasting reminiscence of how troublesome it’s to struggle corruption and to be secure on the similar time.”
