A presidential candidate and a mayor denounced on Saturday that they were affected by shootings registered at hours of the early general elections this Sunday in Ecuador, which suffers violence linked to drug trafficking and where a presidential candidate was assassinated 10 days ago.
The right-wing candidate Otto Sonnenholzner denounced by X (formerly Twitter) that together with his family he suffered “a shooting in front of the place where he was having breakfast” in the port of Guayaquil (southwest), without reporting victims.
“Thank God we are all fine, but we demand an investigation into what happened. The fear and impotence that I saw in the eyes of everyone present hurts me. We cannot continue like this. Tomorrow we will change course!”, he declared.
In response to inquiries from the press, Sonnenholzner’s campaign team has not specified whether the shooting was directed at the former vice president (December 2018 to July 2020), who aspires to come to power like seven other candidates.
The police reported in turn that they are “collating” the information about the shots and added that “there was a police pursuit” in the area as a result of an assault on a store.
On Saturday morning, the mayor of the coastal town of La Libertad (southwest), Francisco Tamariz, denounced that he was the victim of a shooting attack.
“They tried to KILL ME,” said the politician for X, adding that there are “more than 8 witnesses” to the attack recorded around midnight on Friday and in which the police apparently participated.
Tamariz pointed out that he was unharmed in the attack along with his wife and two other relatives who were traveling in an armored vehicle, which was the target of about 30 shots.
