A killing
Fernando Villavicencio, one of Ecuador’s leading presidential candidates, was shot dead in Quito tonight. Other people were injured, too.
Read reports from these outlets:
The BBC.
El Comercio.
El Universo.
El Universo, again, listing some of Villavicencio’s anti-corruption efforts.
August 20 is the planned election day.
I believe this is the first Ecuadorian president or presidential contender to have been murdered during my lifetime. President Jaime Roldós died in a plane crash several months before I was born; as far as I know, he was Ecuador’s last president – or near-president – to die mid-career (so to speak). It happened forty-two years ago; I’ve now had a longer life than Roldós.
Other presidents have been kidnapped, exiled, forced to barricade themselves indoors, etc., but they’ve survived. It hasn’t been too, too unsafe to seek the presidency in Ecuador. A lot of ordinary citizens have had it much worse.
But several politicians have been murdered this year (and more ordinary citizens than usual have been murdered). Ecuador is in a bad way.
Read reports from these outlets:
The BBC.
El Comercio.
El Universo.
El Universo, again, listing some of Villavicencio’s anti-corruption efforts.
August 20 is the planned election day.
I believe this is the first Ecuadorian president or presidential contender to have been murdered during my lifetime. President Jaime Roldós died in a plane crash several months before I was born; as far as I know, he was Ecuador’s last president – or near-president – to die mid-career (so to speak). It happened forty-two years ago; I’ve now had a longer life than Roldós.
Other presidents have been kidnapped, exiled, forced to barricade themselves indoors, etc., but they’ve survived. It hasn’t been too, too unsafe to seek the presidency in Ecuador. A lot of ordinary citizens have had it much worse.
But several politicians have been murdered this year (and more ordinary citizens than usual have been murdered). Ecuador is in a bad way.