The Construye political movement elected Christian Zurita this Sunday to replace Fernando Villavicencio on the presidential ticket, assassinated on August 9 after leaving a political event in Quito. The announcement was made by Andrea González, vice-presidential candidate for the same party, a few hours before the presidential debate in which only seven candidates will participate in the face of the politician’s crime. “Without Fernando Villavicencio there can be no debate, what must happen is that the chair must be there, empty,” Zurita said at a press conference in which he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
The candidacy of Cristian Zurita has not yet been firmly confirmed by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which must qualify the binomial for its participation on August 20, when voters go to the polls to elect president and assembly members to culminate Guillermo Lasso’s mandate until 2025. González made the electoral body ugly that in an extraordinary situation like this it does not respond more quickly to the movement’s request. “We cannot participate in the debate either because the CNE, by not answering our concerns, does not allow us to continue with the process,” attacked González, who was set to replace Villavicencio as a candidate for the presidency, but Ecuadorian law does not allow it. .
Zurita is an investigative journalist with close to 30 years of experience in print and television. Together with Villavicencio he wrote the book Green rice, a compilation of reports that revealed how public officials and members of former President Rafael Correa’s party managed bribes and kept accounts of millions of dollars in bribes. His revelations prompted an investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office that ended in a trial of 17 former officials, including Correa, who is sentenced for this case to eight years in prison for the crime of bribery.
The journalist worked closely on Fernando Villavicencio’s presidential campaign. “His ideas are fully intact and we are going to comply with them, together with him we created the anti-terrorist, anti-mafia plan to protect Ecuador, with an equipped, technical, controlled Police above all,” Zurita said at the press conference in Quito and that “Vengeance against the mafias in this country will be to vote for Fernando Villavicencio,” he added.
If the pairing is approved, Villavicencio’s photograph will appear on the electoral ballots that are already being printed. “We could not allow under any circumstances that Fernando’s non-presence after his brutal crime could be lost. He could not allow his political project to be lost in the National Electoral Council, ”said González, who so far has not received a response from the CNE on the replacement of the candidacy.
The presidential debate will take place this Sunday starting at 7:00 p.m. local time, at the facilities of the public channel in Quito, and will last around three hours. The event will take place under a strong security operation in which 300 soldiers have been deployed around the building of the media outlet, which on previous occasions summons supporters of political parties.
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