Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated on Wednesday afternoon, local time, at the hands of a group of hitmen, who fired three shots into his head while he was holding an electoral rally in Quito, the country’s capital. Ecuador holds presidential elections in a week and a half, on August 20.
Villavicencio, a center-right, former trade unionist and candidate for the Construye Movement, was taken to the nearest hospital, where his death was confirmed, as reported by Interior Minister Juan Zapata. The Ecuadorian Police is already investigating the facts and is checking the place, whose passage has been closed, to “rule out the presence of explosives.” According to witnesses cited by the same outlet, the presidential candidate was shot by a revolver used by “a short man.”
The meeting was held in a school in the capital of Ecuador. Villavicencio was not among the favorites to win the race to succeed Guillermo Lasso, but he was among the five main candidates. His campaign was based on the fight against corruption, and its motto was It’s time for the brave.
In fact, it so happened that just 10 days ago, Villavicencio himself denounced, through a video released by himself, the connections with drug trafficking of the son of the former terrorist and current president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, whose campaign was financed with money from that world, an end confirmed by the son himself.
URGENT| The capture of Nicolás Petro, son of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, for having ties to drug trafficking, splashes the candidate of the citizen revolution. pic.twitter.com/AKfASA3AZG
— Fernando Villavicencio (@VillaFernando_) July 29, 2023
It is not the first attack that Villavicencio has suffered, who already in September 2022 suffered another attack at his own home, which was shot by a group of assailants. That attack was still being investigated in Ecuador.
The outgoing president, Guillermo Lasso, has been “outraged and dismayed by the assassination of the presidential candidate”, and has remarked that “because of his memory and his fight, I assure you that this crime will not go unpunished.” Lasso has reported that “the Security Cabinet will meet in a few minutes in Carondelet. I have asked the president of the CNE, Diana Atamaint; the State Attorney General, Diana Salazar; the President of the National Court of Justice, Iván Saquicela; and to the other State authorities to attend this meeting urgently to discuss this fact that has dismayed the country. Organized crime has come a long way, but the full weight of the law is going to fall on them.
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