On Saturday, Construye Movement said that Villavicencio’s running mate Andrea Gonzalez Nader was going to be the party’s presidential candidate.
On Sunday, the party said that Ecuadorian journalist Christian Zurita would be its candidate at the August 20 election. The announcement came after concerns were raised that the National Electoral Council of Ecuador (NEC) may not accept her as a candidate because she was already registered as a vice-presidential candidate.
Villavicencio was shot dead at a campaign rally on Wednesday, less than two weeks before the election. The main suspect in the assassination died of gunshot wounds, the General Prosecutor's Office said, while six other suspects were detained.
Diana Atamaint, the president of the NEC, said on Thursday that the date of Ecuador's early presidential election scheduled for August 20 would remain unchanged despite the assassination of Villavicencio. She said the country's armed forces would guarantee the security of Ecuadorians throughout the planned electoral process, adding that the protection for the remaining presidential candidates would be doubled.
Ecuadorian media reported that, on Thursday, Estefany Puente Castro, a left-wing opposition politician running for a parliamentary seat in the National Assembly, came under an armed attack while driving in the city of Quevedo, in the Ecuadorian province of Los Rios, with her father and a company employee. Puente was not injured.