Another day of insecurity for the candidates for the Presidency of Ecuador. On Saturday night (19), journalist Christian Zurita, who replaced the murdered candidate Fernando Villavicencio in the elections, says he received death threats on social networks. The election in the South American country takes place this Sunday (20).
According to his party, the user “Cartel Jalisco N, G” left a comment on the candidate’s TikTok profile with the message “Cristian trembles”. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is one of the largest criminal factions operating in Ecuador and has been responsible in recent years for several of the country’s murders. The user no longer exists, and it is uncertain whether he was in fact linked to the criminal organization.
“Threats against my life and my team will not stop us, but they force us to adopt greater security protocols to avoid the harsh events we experienced on August 9”, posted Zurita on the X platform, formerly Twitter, citing the date of the former leader’s death.
“This fact requires urgent and immediate intervention by the President of the Republic and the State Attorney General’s Office to guarantee the life of the presidential candidate,” the party wrote in a statement. Both the organization and the candidate called on international election observation missions “to guarantee the validity of democracy and the transparency of this electoral process.”
Villavicencio was shot dead as he left a rally in northern Quito, the Ecuadorian capital. Shortly before, he had accused the detained leader of the Los Choneros criminal gang, an ally of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, of threatening him with death. He had also denounced parliamentarians at the Public Ministry for allegedly being involved in a plan to assassinate him.
Villavicencio was an outspoken critic of Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador. A Sheet Correa said that the murder of the now former candidate is a plot to undermine the victory of his ally in the presidential race, Luisa González – favorite in the election, according to polls.
“There is a campaign on the networks blaming us for the death. Who wins with this is the extreme right, because they knew we were going to win in the first round, and that took points from us in the polls”, he said. He even considered the involvement of the CIA, the US intelligence agency, in the murder.
Villavicencio’s family, in turn, filed a lawsuit against the government and police chiefs for “murder by willful omission”, arguing that the institutions did not guarantee the candidate’s protection.
Hours before Zurita registered the death threats, the mayor of La Libertad, Francisco Tamariz, said he was the victim of a shooting attack. According to him, when returning from the port of Guayaquil, in the southwest of the country, his armored truck was shot at by two people in plain clothes who got out of a vehicle. “if [o carro] If it weren’t armored, Ecuadorian brother, I wouldn’t be here. It would be impossible to be talking to you after the 30 shots that were […] directed at the truck I was in,” he added.
Also on Saturday, a shooting took place near where presidential candidate Otto Sonnenholzner was having breakfast with his family in Guayaquil. At a press conference, the National Police said that the shots resulted from a chase against bandits who had robbed a clothing store.
