Madrid. The Movimiento Construye party announced this Sunday the journalist Christian Zurita as a candidate for the Presidency of the country to fill the void left by his predecessor, Fernando Villavicencio, shot to death this week, and after a first failed attempt to appoint the candidate in his place. to the Vice Presidency, Andrea González despite the fact that it was prohibited by the electoral law of the country.
“We are going to vote for Fernando Villavicencio. Revenge against the mafias will be to vote for Fernando Villavicencio,” he declared, presented to the media wearing a bulletproof vest as a security measure, reports the newspaper ‘El Universo’.
The journalist, born in Quito, was a friend of the assassinated candidate and they had worked together on numerous journalistic exclusives. Villavicencio was shot to death on August 9 as he was leaving a rally after denouncing threats from drug trafficking.
Zurita indicated that he will be present at this Sunday’s debate between the presidential candidates but will not be able to participate while the candidacy is being processed.
The first attempt to nominate González ended up failing because Ecuadorian electoral law prevents under any circumstances changing the candidacy for a post in the middle of the campaign, despite the party’s complaints.
Zurita has a long journalistic career behind him, first as a reporter for Vistazo Magazine, head of Investigation for the 24-hour Newscast or as a special editor for ‘El Universo’ on issues of corruption, organized crime and drug trafficking.
The candidate has also been a member of the international team of journalists that uncovered the Lava Jato case, one of the biggest political and financial scandals in recent Brazilian history.
One of the journalistic investigations of the dejected politician brought Correa to the bench, in one of the most emblematic cases of lawfare in the region. The report written together with his colleague and friend Christian Zurita uncovered an alleged bribery scheme in which the former president and his government officials who were accused of having received bribes from businessmen were implicated.
For this case, Correa, who is a refugee in Belgium and whom the late Villavicencio referred to as the fugitive, was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison.
