What Is Known About Assassination of Ecuador's Presidential Candidate Fernando Villavicencio?
12:51 GMT 10.08.2023 (Updated: 13:01 GMT 10.08.2023)
© AP Photo
Subscribe
Fernando Villavicencio, formerly a member of Ecuador's National Assembly, was one of eight presidential candidates registered to take part in the country's early election. The politician was gunned down leaving a rally in the capital on Wednesday. He later died in hospital.
An Ecuadorian presidential candidate was gunned down at a political rally in the capital, Quito, on August 9. The assassination of Fernando Villavicencio occurred less than two weeks before the presidential election in the South American country, slated for August 20.
Here is what is known so far about the killing.
What Happened at the Quito Rally?
Fernando Alcibiades Villavicencio Valencia, an Ecuadorian politician and journalist, was one of eight presidential candidates contesting the early elections scheduled for August 20. The nation's President Guillermo Lasso announced in May that he was dissolving the country’s legislature, the National Assembly, to avoid an impeachment vote, with new elections to be held within 90 days.
Villavicencio, who cast himself as an anticorruption candidate, had been addressing a campaign rally at a local high school in the country's capital. The campaign stop was aimed at wooing young supporters. Numerous videos later posted on social media showed Villavicencio leaving the campaign event and entering a white vehicle before gun shots rang out. The 59-year-old sank to the ground.
What’s going on in Ecuador? 🧵
— Fiorella Isabel (@FiorellaIsabelM) August 10, 2023
The video below shows the moment when 59 year-old Fernando Villavicencio, a candidate for President of Ecuador & a member of the country's national assembly, was assassinated as he left a campaign event in Quito on Wednesday. He was officially… pic.twitter.com/T5vass4bbI
Villavicencio had been shot several times, according to police and local media reports. The politician was transported to a nearby clinic but medics were unable to save him.
Slightly before 8:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Lasso posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Villavicencio had been killed, vowing the "crime will not go unpunished."
El Universo, Ecuador's main newspaper, reported that the politician was assassinated “hitman-style and with three shots to the head”. A member of Villavicencio's campaign, Carlos Figueroa, present at the rally and a witness to the shooting, told the media:
"When he stepped outside the door, he was met with gunfire. There was nothing to be done, because they were shots to the head."
The attorney general's office said one suspect in the crime subsequently died of injuries sustained in the shootout that followed. There is no exact information as to the number of assailants involved. It was also revealed that a grenade had been lobbed at the crowd near the politician, which, fortunately, did not explode. Nine other people, including a candidate for the legislature and two police officers were injured.
A policeman is assisted after being wounded after shots were fired at the end of a rally of Ecuadorian presidential cadidate Fernando Villavicencio in Quito, on August 9, 2023.
© AFP 2023 / STR
Supporters of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio run for cover after he was shot to death while at a campaign rally outside a school in Quito, Ecuador,
© AP Photo
The attorney general’s office later said it had arrested six people so far in connection with the crime during raids in Quito.
A criminal gang called Los Lobos (The Wolves) - the second-largest gang in Ecuador, and a breakaway faction from the Los Choneros gang - appears to have claimed responsibility for the killing. A video doing the rounds on social media shows gang members wearing balaclavas and waving their weapons.
Twitter screengrab purportedly showing gang members of Los Lobos, from Ecuador.
© Photo : Twitter
Lasso announced on Thursday that while a state of emergency would be in place across the country for 60 days in connection with the assassination but that the date of the presidential election in Ecuador will not change.
10 August 2023, 06:18 GMT
Who Was Fernando Villavicencio?
Villavicencio was formerly a union leader at the state oil company, Petroecuador. Originally from Chimborazo province, he served as a member of Ecuador's National Assembly from 2017 until it was dissolved earlier this year. He boasted an impressive history in Ecuador's public affairs, and was an avid anti-corruption campaigner, denouncing the violence caused by drug trafficking in the country.
Villavicencio was also a vocal critic of former President Rafael Correa, who was sentenced to prison for corruption in 2020. Villavicencio was at one point accused of defaming the former president and sentenced to 18 months in prison, according to media reports, which prompted him to flee to Peru. However, he returned after Correa left office.
For his presidential run, Villavicencio was representing the Build Ecuador Movement, a broad center-right coalition. Villavicencio was not a frontrunner in the race, with opinion polls showing him hovering somewhere in the middle of the eight candidates. Luisa González is the frontrunner of the pack.
At one point earlier in the year Villavicencio was cited as telling the media that Ecuador had become a “narco state.” Prior to the shooting, Villavicencio claimed on national television that he had received multiple death threats, including from a jailed leader of the Choneros gang, as well as leaders of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, ostensibly operating in Ecuador.
The slain politician was married with five children, according to local media reports.
Former Assembly member and presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, of Ecuador.
© AFP 2023 / RODRIGO BUENDIA
What Is the Situation in Ecuador?
For years now the South American nation has witnessed a surge in violent, gang-related crime, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
According to media reports, raging turf wars among rival drug-trafficking criminal organizations have resulted in a huge spike in murder rates. The country is struggling to deal with the situation in its overcrowded prisons, where criminal gangs often take control of the penitentiaries, with hundreds of inmates kiled. Furthermore, Ecuador has found itself part of an active cocaine trafficking route from South America to North America and Europe, security experts have been cited as saying.
After Wednesday’s killing, Lasso stated, as per translation offered in media reports:
“Organized crime has gone too far but they will feel the full weight of the law.”
