Ecuador presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio assassinated

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A presidential candidate in Ecuador has been shot dead at a campaign event as political violence threatens the country’s upcoming election.

Fernando Villavicencio, a lawmaker and former journalist who had spoken out against organised crime and corruption, was killed by gunmen in Quito, the capital, on Wednesday evening.

Ecuador’s president Guillermo Lasso declared a two-month state of emergency and three days of national mourning in a video posted online after a late-night meeting of his security cabinet.

He said the assassination had been designed to “sabotage” the electoral process, and linked it to gang violence that has escalated sharply in Ecuador in recent years. “We will not cede power and democratic institutions to organised crime,” he said.

“Today more than ever we must be united,” Lasso added, encouraging Ecuadoreans to turn out to vote as planned on August 20. On X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, he said those responsible would face “the full weight of the law”.

A suspect in the shooting was wounded in an exchange of fire with security officials and later died after being arrested, the attorney-general’s office said in a statement. Nine other people were injured, including a congressional candidate and two police officers.

Six people were arrested in raids in Quito in connection with the assassination, the attorney-general’s office added.

International condemnation of the assassination was swift. EU high representative Josep Borrell said in a statement that “this tragic act of violence is also an attack against the institutions and democracy in Ecuador.”

Brian Nicholls, US assistant secretary of state for the western hemisphere, offered support to authorities investigating the murder. “The assassination of Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, an outspoken opponent of organised crime, is a brazen attack on democracy and the rule of law,” he said.

Two presidential candidates — indigenous leader Yaku Pérez and newcomer Jan Topic — announced the temporary suspension of their campaigns following the murder.

Diana Atamaint, head of Ecuador’s National Electoral Council, said the election date was “unalterable”, amid rumours that the polls would need to be rearranged.

Snap presidential and general elections were triggered when Lasso dissolved Congress in May, using a constitutional clause known as “mutual death”.

Lasso had been battling impeachment charges by the opposition-controlled legislature. The charges of embezzlement related to contracts awarded to state-owned oil transport company Flopec before he took office. Lasso is not contesting the poll.

Villavicencio, alongside most of the other seven candidates, was campaigning on a platform focused on cracking down on crime. He had been an ally of investor-friendly Lasso and led investigations into Rafael Correa, the leftist who governed Ecuador from 2007 to 2017.

“Ecuador has become a failed state,” Correa wrote on X following the assassination. “I hope that those who intend to sow even more hatred with this new tragedy understand it only continues to destroy us.”

Drug-related violence has exploded in Ecuador, which was once considered a safe haven between its more lawless neighbours Peru and Colombia. The murder rate has quadrupled over the past five years as warring gangs have fought to consolidate trafficking routes. Last year, 4,800 murders were reported in the nation of 18mn, almost double the number from a year earlier.

The bloodshed has spread to politics, with the mayor of Manta, a port city, gunned down at a public event last month.

Several polls have shown that the country’s security crisis is voters’ main concern.

“Ecuador is practically submerged in organised crime,” Villavicencio, 59, told the Financial Times in an interview in May. “I would declare a war on criminal economies and that is a central campaign strategy.”

Sebastián Hurtado, head of the Quito political risk consultancy Prófitas, said: “There is no precedent for this political violence in Ecuador’s modern history . . . This is a turning point, and one that shows how interconnected political interests are with criminal economic ones.”