Just seven days before the presidential elections in Ecuadorthe journalist and personal friend of Fernando Villavicencio, Christian Zurita entered into an electoral process conditioned by organized crime.
‘build‘ the party led until a few days ago by Villavicencioofficially designated and introduced Sunday to zurita as a presidential candidate, after the fleeting designation on Saturday of the number two of Villavicencio as a presidential candidate.
own Andrea Gonzalez I accompany the new presidential candidate during the announcement that he will only have a few days to ask for a vote in a process in which even the ballots are already printed and the name of Villavicencio will be present when Ecuadorians vote next Sunday, August 20.
Christian Zurita, new presidential candidate of Ecuador and Andrea González as number two
zurita53 years old, has a profile similar to Villavicencio and worked closely with the murdered politician in various investigations into corruption and organized crime in Ecuador.
They both founded several independent media outlets and wrote the book ‘Green rice‘, a series of reports on how officials and militants of the former president’s party Rafael Correa They managed illicit money and bribes.
zurita he won National Journalism Award both in 2009 and 2019, among several other recognitions that recognize a long career in investigative journalism.
With Juan Carlos Calderonpublished the book ‘El Gran Hermano’, which recounts favoritism in State contracts for Fabricio Correa, brother of the former president. For that post, Belt He brought both journalists to trial and the court sentenced them in 2012 to pay one million dollars each for “non-material damage”.
as he remembers French 24at the time, Reporters Without Borders He called the sentence “politically arbitrary and inopportune” as well as “dangerous on a judicial level.” Shortly after the court’s decision was made known, Belt he dropped the case and thus avoided economic punishment for the journalists.
zurita was an active supporter of the campaign Villavicencio whom he met in the university classrooms of the Faculty of Journalism.
The winners of these elections, in which the Correísmo candidate, Luisa Gonzalezappears as a favorite, will complete the 2021-2025 period, interrupted last May by the conservative William Lasso after dissolving the National Assemblywith an opposition majority, at the time he was preparing to vote on his dismissal.
If this Sunday no candidate achieves half plus one of the votes, as is foreseeable, the two candidates with the most votes must compete for the presidency of Ecuador in a second round on Sunday, October 15.
