quit. Pedro Briones, local leader of Revolución Ciudadana, a political movement founded by former President Rafael Correa, was assassinated yesterday in the Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas, party leaders reported, less than a week after the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, of the Construye Movement. .
Ecuadorians will go to the polls on Sunday to vote in an early presidential election after Guillermo Lasso dissolved Congress to avoid impeachment.
The vote will take place amid high crime rates in the country, with increasing incidents of violence and murders – in cities and prisons – that Lasso has repeatedly attributed to gangs linked to drug trafficking.
Briones was assassinated at the door of his home in the town of San Mateo, in the northern province of Esmeraldas, on the border with Colombia.
Two men who were moving on a motorcycle shot him in the neck; Briones was taken to the local Delfina Torres de Concha hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the newspaper reported. The universe.
“My solidarity hug to the family of compañero Pedro Briones, who fell into the hands of violence,” published Luisa González, RC presidential candidate, on the X social network.
“Ecuador is experiencing its bloodiest period. We owe this to the total abandonment of an inept government and a state taken over by mafias. Change is urgent!” she added.
In turn, Correa, who lives in Belgium, shared in X: “another comrade was murdered in Esmeraldas. Stop!”
The Ecuadorian police and the Ministry of the Interior did not answer questions about the murder, according to the Afp and Reuters agencies.
Last Wednesday, Villavicencio, 59, was shot in Quito when he was leaving a rally in this capital. The event shocked the country and led the main candidates to promise tough approaches to crime in their campaigns, which was reiterated the night of Comingo in a debate.
Pedro Briones, leader of the Revolución Ciudadana movement in the Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas, was assassinated yesterday at the door of his home. Social media photo.
Villavicencio had 10 percent of the intention to vote, according to polls, and was located behind González, Otto Sonnenholzner, of the Avanza Party, and the indigenous candidate Yaku Pérez.
In the presidential elections on the 20th, Ecuadorians will also elect 137 assembly members to complete the current term of government that ends in May 2025.
The Construye Movement, which was running the assassinated politician, appointed Christian Zurita, a journalist and friend of Villavicencio, for the presidential candidacy over the weekend.
One of Villavicencio’s journalistic investigations brought former President Rafael Correa to the bench, in one of the most emblematic cases of lawfare in the region. Together with Zurita, he wrote a report on an alleged bribery scheme, a case for which Correa was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison.
The National Electoral Council still has to verify if Zurita meets the requirements demanded by law to approve the candidacy. Andrea González Nader will continue to be a candidate for vice president.
FBI agents in action
Members of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began working yesterday in Ecuador to clarify the murder of Villavicencio, at the request of Lasso.
The Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, explained at a press conference that the foreign agents will meet with the police and the Ecuadorian prosecutor’s office to determine the scope of collaboration and support, and stressed that “the first step to find the material authors has already been gave”, in reference to the six Colombians detained.
In another order, prisoners of a large prison complex in the port of Guayaquil protested yesterday the transfer to a maximum security prison of the head of the cartel of The Choneros Joseph Adolphus phyto Macías, whom Villavicencio accused of having threatened to kill him, authorities reported.
The inmates climbed to the roofs of two of the five prisons that comprise the penitentiary center, reported the National Service for Comprehensive Care for Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI).
The prisoners held signs demanding: “We want the return of phyto”.
Inmates of the prison complex in Guayaquil protested yesterday against the transfer of the leader of ‘Los Choneros to another prison. Photo Afp.
Messages such as: “with phyto we sow peace”, according to aerial photos from the Afp news agency.
Authorities have not reported any incidents or casualties.
In the midst of a military and police mega-operation, phyto he was transferred Saturday to the same compound from which he escaped years ago with other crime leaders.
Protests by the capo
There were also demonstrations outside the prison complex, the scene of massacres that have been committed since February 2021 in Ecuador, with a balance of 430 dead inmates. Some killings are among the worst in Latin America.
The SNAI assured that prisoners from Guayas 1 and Guayas 4 who were on the roofs “have already been evicted and sent to their pavilions.”
The police reported that some 400 motorcyclists participated in the protests outside the large penitentiary and that perimeter security was “reinforced” with the support of the military.
“That prison is already under control,” he said.
Macías, sentenced to 34 years in prison for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder, has been in prison since 2011 and leads the criminal gang The Chonerosthe most powerful in the country and allied to the Mexican Sinaloa cartel.
Criminal organizations are waging a turf war in Ecuador, where the homicide rate increased to 26 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022, almost double what was registered the previous year.
Ecuador, located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s main cocaine producers, has seized more than 530 tons of the drug since 2021, the year in which seizures reached a record 210 tons.
After the transfer of phyto Videos circulated on social networks with messages from the prison of alleged members of The Chonerosand other allied groups, threatening more violence if the boss is not returned to the prison where he was serving his sentence.
