QUITO, Aug 10 (AP): An Ecuadorian presidential candidate known for speaking up against cartels
and corruption was shot and killed on Wednesday at a political rally in the capital, amid a startling
wave of gang-driven violence in the South American country.President Guillermo Lasso confirmed
the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio and suggested organized crime was behind his slaying,
less than two weeks before the Aug. 20 presidential election.
“I assure you that this crime will not go unpunished,” Lasso said in a statement. “Organized crime
has gone too far, but they will feel the full weight of the law.”
Ecuador’s attorney general’s office said that one suspect died in custody from wounds sustained in a
firefight after the killing, and police detained six suspects following raids in Quito.
In his final speech before he was killed, Villavicencio promised a roaring crowd that he would root
out corruption and lock up the country’s “thieves.”
Prior to the shooting, Villavicencio said he had received multiple death threats, including from
affiliates of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, one of a slew of international organized crime groups that now
operate in Ecuador. He said his campaign represented a threat to such groups.
“Here I am showing my face. I’m not scared of them,” Villavicencio said in a statement, naming
detained crime boss José Adolfo Macías by his alias “Fito.”
Villavicencio was one of eight candidates, though not the front-runner. The politician, 59, was the
candidate for the Build Ecuador Movement.
Supporter Ida Paez said that Villavicencio’s campaign had given her hope that the country could
overcome the gangs. At the rally, she said, “We were happy. Fernando even danced. His last words
were, if someone messes with the people, he is messing with my family.”
As drug traffickers have begun to use the country’s coastal ports, Ecuadorians have reeled from
violence not seen for decades. The sounds of gunfire ring in many major cities as rival gangs battle
for control, and gangs have recruited children. Just last month, the mayor of the port city of Manta
was shot and killed. On July 26, Lasso declared a state of emergency covering two provinces and the
country’s prison system in an effort to stem the violence.
Former vice president and candidate Otto Sonnenholzner said in a news conference following
Wednesday’s killing, “We are dying, drowning in a sea of tears and we do not deserve to live like
this. We demand that you do something.”
Videos of the rally on social media appear to show Villavicencio walking out of the event surrounded
by guards. The video then shows the candidate getting into a white pickup truck before gunshots are
heard, followed by screams and commotion around the truck. This sequence of events was
confirmed to The Associated Press by Patricio Zuquilanda, Villavicencio’s campaign adviser.
Zuquilanda said the candidate had received at least three death threats before the shooting, which
he had reported to authorities, resulting in one detention. He called on international authorities to
take action against the violence, attributing it to rising violence and drug trafficking.
“The Ecuadorian people are crying and Ecuador is mortally wounded,” he said. “Politics cannot lead
to the death of any member of society.”
Villavicencio was one of the country’s most critical voices against corruption, especially during the
2007-2017 government of President Rafael Correa.
He was also an independent journalist who investigated corruption in previous governments, later
entering politics as an anti-graft campaigner.
Villavicencio filed many judicial complaints against high-ranking members of the Correa government,
including against the ex-president himself. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for defamation
over his criticisms of Correa, and fled to Indigenous territory in Ecuador, later receiving asylum in
neighboring Peru.
Edison Romo, a former military intelligence colonel, said the anti-corruption complaints made
Villavicencio “a threat to international criminal organizations.”
Lasso, a conservative former banker, was elected in 2021 on a business-friendly platform and
clashed from the start with the left-leaning majority coalition in the National Assembly.
A snap election was called after Lasso dissolved the National Assembly by decree in May, in a move
to avoid being impeached over allegations that he failed to intervene to end a faulty contract
between the state-owned oil transport company and a private tanker company.
Ecuador’s constitution includes a provision that allows the president to disband the assembly during
a political crisis, but then requires new elections for both the assembly and the presidency.
The country has faced a series of political upheavals in recent years.
Authorities said that at least nine others were injured in the Wednesday shooting, including officers
and a congressional candidate, in what they described as a “terrorist act.”
The killing was met with an outcry by other candidates who demanded action, with presidential
front-runner Luisa González of the Citizen Revolution party saying “when they touch one of us, they
touch all of us.”
Villavicencio was married and is survived by five children.
