Fernando Villavicencio, the presidential candidate in Ecuador assassinated in a hail of gunfire on Wednesday, had for months denounced threats to his person and dared drug trafficking cartels to kill him.
In one of his last public appearances, at a campaign rally less than a week before his assassination, Villavicencio said he refused to use bulletproof vests despite constantly being told to for his safety.
“Let the narco capos come to me, let the assassins come,” he proclaimed. “The time for threats is over.”
Villavicencio was one of eight candidates in the Ecuadorian presidential election, still scheduled to take place on August 20 despite his killing. He had concluded a campaign event in Quito on Wednesday when, while walking to his vehicle, apparently in the presence of four police officers, gunmen began shooting in his direction. Reports indicated that Villavicencio died of three gunshot wounds to the head, and another nine people suffered significant injuries. An unnamed man believed to be a gunman also died at the scene in a shootout with police.
Ecuadorian authorities have arrested six men, all Colombian nationals, in relation to the assassination as of Friday morning. Two of the men already had warrants out for their arrests on unrelated charges.
The assassination has left Ecuador in a state of shock, with no presidential frontrunner and an unclear path to maintaining the safety of the other candidates through the August 20 elections.
Villavicencio began his career in Ecuador’s rich oil industry, then became a journalist and ultimately served in Ecuador’s National Assembly until current President Guillermo Lasso dissolved it in May. After a series of failed impeachments, Lasso used his constitutional powers to dissolve the federal legislature and call for new elections on the grounds that the Ecuadorian left had made governing impossible. Lasso is not running for reelection.
As a lawmaker and investigator, Villavicencio focused on combatting socialist corruption in the country, leading research efforts to uncover socialist former President Rafael Correa’s dealings with communist China that, according to the late presidential candidate, resulted in Ecuador losing billions in oil revenue. Correa attempted to imprison him for insulting the president in 2014 but failed after Villavicencio took refuge with an indigenous Amazonian tribe.
Villavicencio had also recently accused leftist lawmakers of corruption and illicit ties with drug trafficking organizations. He had recently accused one drug trafficker in particular, an alleged Sinaloa Cartel member known as “Fito,” of plotting his assassination.
During a campaign stop in Chone, northern Ecuador, last week, Villavicencio boasted that he received regular death threats but refused to use a bulletproof vest.
“They have told me to use the vest – here I am in a sweaty shirt, damn it!” Villavicencio shouted. “You folks are my bulletproof vest, I don’t need one.”
“You are my valiant people and I am as brave as you are, you are the ones who take care of me,” he continued. “They said they were going to break me – here I am. Let the narco capos come, let the assassins come … the time for threats is over. I am here.”
Villavicencio had made his primary campaign promise to do away with drug trafficking and organized crime in the country. He promised to build a “high-security” prison as his first major project in the presidency and wore the threats as a sign that his policies would be effective and inspired fear in criminal leaders.
In early August, Villavicencio denounced a “very grave threat from one of the Sinaloa cartel capos, alias ‘Fito,’ against me and against my campaign team with a warning that if I keep referring to him and his organization they will attack or threaten my life.”
“What this does is confirm that, in fact, our campaign proposals gravely affect criminal organizations,” Villavicencio said. “And here I am, showing my face. I am not afraid. I have been betting on this country for 20 years against these criminal structures and I reiterate: I am not afraid of them.”
Villavicencio had previously also dismissed the possibility of losing his life as a minor price to pay.
“The only thing they can do to me is kill me, and with that we will liberate an entire people,” he said at a recent campaign stop in July, according to the Spanish newspaper El País. “I’m not afraid of death because I have already won against her.”
Villavicencio had denounced death threats long before the presidential race. In April, before Lasso called for elections, Villavicencio claimed members of the National Assembly were planning to assassinate him with the help of organized crime.
“I have received information from parliamentary sources about an attack with ‘assassins’ being prepared against me and my family,” Villavicencio said at the time, “being prepared by various legislators who have demonstrated open opposition to my serving [in the Assembly]. The country knows who they are.”
Villavicencio had published in January a list of lawmakers, most of them from socialist and left-wing parties, that he accused of conspiracy with drug traffickers.
Villavicencio’s wife, Verónica Sarauz, confirmed to the South American news station NTN24 on Thursday her husband refused to wear bulletproof vests during his final days, despite having worn them before and the repeated threats against his life, but blamed the Lasso government for not offering sufficient security this week to prevent a tragedy.
Sarauz described her husband as facing a “97 percent” risk of losing his life during the election.
“Fernando had security and I don’t understand why an assassin could get so close to my husband’s security detail and kill him,” she said.
Ecuador’s El Universo reported on Thursday that footage from the assassination scene showed only four police officers protecting Villavicencio when, in the past, according to unnamed campaign staffers, police had offered “dozens of armed and uniformed officers and even military vehicles” to aid Villavicencio in his campaign stops.
The Ecuadorian Minister of Government (equivalent to interior secretary) Henry Cucalón defended his government’s protection of Villavicencio, insisting no evidence suggested any “omission or inaction” that would have enabled the killing. Cucalón described the shootout that killed the candidate as a “terrorist attack” meant to send the message “that nothing stops organized crime.”
“If they can attack and end the life of a presidential candidate, they can do it to anyone, including the president. That’s the message they wanted to send,” Cucalón asserted, insisting elections must take place on August 20 as a “slap in the face” against the culprits and their messaging.
Lasso announced on Thursday that he had requested help in investigating the matter from the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.