Candles are seen on the pavement outside the sports complex where Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated on the eve, in Quito on 10 August.
- Presidential hopeful Fernando Villavicencio was killed after
a campaign rally in Quinto on Wednesday. - Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso blamed the assassination
on organised crime. - In recent years, a mayor and a parliamentary candidate have
been killed in violence linked to drug trafficking in the country.
Ecuadoran
presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead after holding a
rally in Quito on Wednesday evening, top officials said.
President
Guillermo Lasso blamed Villavicencio’s death on “organized crime” in
a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, and vowed to bring the
perpetrators to justice.
Lasso said:
Outraged and shocked by the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, For his memory and for his fight, I assure you that this crime will not go unpunished.
The 59-year-old
centrist was one of eight candidates in the first round of the country’s
presidential election scheduled for 20 August.
Villavicencio
was killed as he was leaving a stadium in northern Quito after holding a
campaign rally, officials said.
The country’s
main newspaper, El Universo, reported that he was assassinated
“hitman-style and with three shots to the head.”
Earlier
this month, Villavicencio had complained that he and his team were receiving
threats.
‘Full weight of the law’
Lasso
summoned top security officials for an urgent meeting on “this event that
has shocked the country.”
“Organized
crime has gone too far, but the full weight of the law will be applied to
them,” Lasso said in his post.
According
to the latest polls, Villavicencio, a former journalist and former parliament
member, ranked second with support of around 13 percent of voters, behind
lawyer Luisa Gonzalez, who is close to former left-wing president Rafael
Correa.
People take cover after shots were fired at the end of a rally of Ecuadorian presidential cadidate Fernando Villavicencio in Quito on 9 August
In recent
years, Ecuador has been hit by 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 parliamentary candidate.
The
president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Diana Atamaint, had said
earlier Wednesday that several members of her organization, which is
responsible for supervising the ballot, had received death threats.
Atamaint
was among the officials summoned by Lasso for the security meeting, along with
the Attorney General, the president of the National Court of Justice and
others.
The
president also sent a message to Villavicencio’s family.
“My
solidarity and my condolences with his wife and his daughters,” he said in
his post.
