Quito, Ecuador.- The president of Ecuador, the conservative Guillermo Lasso, on Wednesday expressed his dismay at the shooting of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and has promised that the crime will not go unpunished.
“Outraged and shocked by the murder of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. My solidarity and condolences to his wife and daughters. For his memory and for his fight, I assure you that this crime will not go unpunished,” he wrote. Lasso in social networks.
In addition, he reported that he has called a meeting at the presidential palace in Carondelet, in the historic center of quit, to the call Security Cabinet made up of authorities from Executive and other functions of State.
«The Security Cabinet will meet in a few minutes at Carondelet. I have asked the president of the CNE (National Electoral Council), Diana Atamaint; to the State Attorney General, Diana Salazar; to the president of the National Court of Justice, Iván Saquicela; and to the other authorities of State urgently attend this meeting to discuss this fact that has dismayed the country,” he said. Lasso.
“Organized crime has come a long way, but the full weight of the law is going to fall on them,” remarked the head of state, in whose mandate the biggest crisis of insecurity that the country has endured has exploded due to the proliferation and violent actions of gangs linked, according to the authorities, to international drug trafficking mafias.
The crime of Villavicencio It happened at the end of the afternoon on the outskirts of a coliseum where the applicant had gathered supporters within the framework of the electoral campaign for the elections on August 20.
Villavicencio, identified as a staunch critic of former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), he mobilized with police protection in the face of threats he had received weeks before.
The murder of Villavicencio It occurred at a time when the country is experiencing an escalation of violence due to the action of criminal gangs on a national scale that also recently claimed the life of the mayor of Blanket, Agustin Intriago, and a candidate for assembly by the northern province of emeralds.
Multiple reports of murders, massacres, extortions, attacks with explosives, among other crimes, are reproduced daily, which have sown terror among Ecuadorians who have suffered from this type of violent acts for a little over two years. Precisely, the fight against crime has been one of the main promises of the candidates who aspire to succeed to the conservative Guillermo Lasso, He is not running for re-election.
In addition to Villavicencio, for the presidential elections on August 20 they had enrolled the environmentalist Yaku Pérez, the correísta Luis González, the security expert Jan Topic, the former vice president Otto Sonnenholzner, the politician Daniel Hervas, the businessman Daniel Noboa and the independent Bolívar Armijos.
