Ecuadorean Presidential Candidate Assassinated

Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead on Wednesday, less than two weeks before an election in a country racked by a surge in violent crime, said President Guillermo Lasso.

Villavicencio, a 59-year-old former journalist and congressman, was killed after leaving a campaign event at a school in the capital, Quito.

“Outraged and dismayed by the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio,” Lasso wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “In his memory and for his fight, I assure you that this crime will not stay unpunished.”

A suspect in the killing died of wounds after he was arrested, the attorney general’s office said.

A video posted online shows people diving to the ground moments after Villavicencio gets into a car and a barrage of gunshots goes off. Another video posted by Villavicencio’s friend, the journalist Christian Zurita, showed people screaming and huddling on the floor of the school.

“They killed my friend,” Zurita tweeted shortly after posting the video.

Villavicencio was a sharp critic of corruption and the drug gangs that have recently unleashed bloodshed across what had once been a relatively peaceful country. He recently said he had received threats from a local gang, known as the Choneros. The gang has ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, which security experts say ensures cocaine shipments from Colombia pass through Ecuador before heading north toward the U.S.

“This confirms that our campaign proposal would gravely affect these criminal structures,” he said referring to recent threats. “I’m not afraid.”

In another speech in which he addressed the economy, Villavicencio said that “to talk about investments requires dismantling the criminal structures.”

“We have a criminal economy financed by drug trafficking, illegal mining and by…bribes from corruption in the public sector,” he said.

Ecuadoreans are scheduled to vote on Aug. 20 for a new president after Lasso called new elections to avoid being impeached by Congress. Political analysts say that Villavicencio was one of the candidates with a chance to finish second in the first round vote. Polls show that no one is likely to take enough votes to win the presidency outright in the first round. That scenario would require a second-round runoff between the top two candidates.

The death of Villavicencio led to an outpouring of condolences.

“As an Ecuadorean, I deeply lament the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio at the hands of criminals,” said another presidential candidate, Jan Topic, in a video posted online. “Today more than ever an iron fist is needed.”

As a journalist, Villavicencio led numerous investigations and wrote books about government corruption, especially during the administration of former President

Villavicencio was later elected to Congress and led the oversight committee, where he investigated graft. He was a sharp critic of Chinese loans to Ecuador, including for large hydroelectric projects.

“Ecuador was harmed,” he told The Wall Street Journal during an interview last year at his congressional office.

Once one of Latin America’s safest countries, Ecuador has become one of its most dangerous. Police and security experts say record cocaine production in neighboring Colombia and violence among Ecuadorean drug gangs propped up by Mexican and Albanian cartels has sparked a wave of violence.

Homicides have quadrupled since 2019, reaching a record 4,800 last year and driving a surge in migration, mainly to the U.S., according to the Interior Ministry. Violence has increased significantly since 2020, mostly hitting the coastal city of Guayaquil, as gangs fight for control of cocaine-trafficking routes to maritime ports. Police and residents say that assassins gun down prosecutors and police, hang bodies from bridges and recruit children.

Write to Ryan Dubé at [email protected] and Juan Forero at [email protected]