Quito [Ecuador], August 11: Ecuador plunged deeper into crisis after an anti-corruption presidential candidate was assassinated on Wednesday evening, less than two weeks before elections.
Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso on Thursday declared a 60-day state of emergency and mobilized troops nationwide in response to the mafia-style killing. Lasso, who is not running for president himself, said the early presidential and parliamentary elections are to go ahead as scheduled for August 20. He declared a three-day nationwide state of mourning.
Unknown gunmen fired at presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio as he got in a car following a political rally at a school in Quito around 6:20pm (2320GMT) on Wednesday, local media reported. He was reportedly shot in the head three times.
Media footage showed dramatic scenes from the crime: Victims were seen on pictures and videos covered in blood, with passersby taking shelter on the ground and screaming for help. One of the suspected attackers was wounded in a shoot-out with police and later died on the way to the hospital, said the president. Six other suspects have been arrested, he added.
The assailants had tried to throw a grenade into the crowd but the device did not detonate.
Prosecutors also said that nine people were injured in the attack, including a parliamentary candidate and two police officers. A video surfaced on social media on Thursday in which suspected members of the Los Lobos criminal gang appear to claim responsibility for the attack. "If the corrupt politicians who finance their election campaigns with our money, with millions of dollars, do not fulfil their promises, they will be killed," a hooded spokesman said in it, flanked by a dozen armed men. The video could not be independently verified.
Los Lobos are the second largest criminal gang in Ecuador, with around 8,000 members, according to the portal InSight Crime. They are known for drug trafficking and have recently been involved in a series of bloody confrontations in Ecuador's notoriously violent and chaotic prisons.
Lasso called Villavicencio's murder a political crime with elements of terrorism. "We have no doubt that this murder is an attempt to sabotage the electoral process," he said.
The leader stressed that the state would not yield to the "brutality of this assassination." "We will not hand over power and democratic institutions to organized crime, even if it is disguised as political organizations," said Lasso.
The South American country lies on the continent's cocaine transit route, which is produced mainly in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, and which drug cartels then smuggle to the United States or Europe.
The organized crime is accompanied by large-scale violence and corruption. Last year, the number of homicides rose from 2,115 to 4,603, meaning 25 per 100,000 inhabitants. That was the highest in the country's history, topping that of Mexico and Brazil.
Villavicencio, the presidential candidate for the Build Ecuador Movement, had been campaigning on an anti-corruption platform.
Source: Qatar Tribune