Fernando Villavicencio fatally shot last week after leaving a campaign event in capital, Quito

Villavicencio’s Build party, or Construye in Spanish, announced on social media that Andrea González was replacing the 59-year-old as its presidential candidate in the 20 August vote.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    18·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The political party of Ecuador’s assassinated presidential hopeful, Fernando Villavicencio, picked its vice-presidential candidate to replace him on Saturday, just a week before the election.

    Villavicencio’s Build party, or Construye in Spanish, announced on social media that Andrea González was replacing the 59-year-old as its presidential candidate in the 20 August vote.

    Villavicencio, an ex-lawmaker and journalist with a long track record of exposing corruption, was fatally shot last week after leaving a campaign event in the capital, Quito, despite his government-provided security detail.

    She had been selected by Villavicencio to be his running mate in the snap election called by outgoing president Guillermo Lasso.

    The South American nation of 18 million has seen a rising tide of violence in recent years, including a sharp increase in the murder rate.

    Villavicencio had accused Los Choneros and its leader, Adolfo Macías, whom he linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, of threatening him and his campaign team days before the assassination.

    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
    31·
    1 year ago

    I doubt their performance will matter much in such a short notice for the first round, since they were already trailing behind at 8-10%, but whoever joins together with them in the second round might get a good boost. It seems like Luiza González (the leading candidate from the Revolutionary Citizen movement, name unrelated) is taking this issue very seriously (interview with her), while the 2nd place Topíc can barely be found talking about it (despite framing himself as a soldier/security kinda guy).

    González-González alliance might be incoming during the second round to confuse all the foreign observers. Anybody with boots on ground/more familiarity can correct me there?