Country “experiencing bloody times”
Another politician was killed in Ecuador
08/15/2023 06:56 AM
Five days after the assassination of presidential candidate Villavicencio, Ecuador’s former president Correa wrote, “They have killed another of our colleagues”. The occasion was the murder of another politician in a South American country.
Five days after presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated in Ecuador, a local politician has been killed in the north of the country. Pedro Briones, head of leftist former President Rafael Correa’s Civic Revolutionary Party, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Esmeraldas province, his party said. Local media, citing a police source, reported that Briones was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle at his home in the city of San Mateo.
Luisa Gonzalez, one of the leading candidates for the presidential election on August 20, close to Correo, expressed her solidarity with the family of the deceased on the online service X. “Ecuador is going through its bloody period,” he said, denouncing “the total neglect of an incompetent government” and “a state taken over by criminal gangs.”
Correa also expressed himself in an online service: “You murdered one of our colleagues at Esmeraldas. Enough!”, the former president wrote.
Villavicencio, a promising presidential candidate who had dedicated himself to fighting corruption in the South American country, was shot dead Wednesday after a rally in the capital, Quito. As a journalist, he investigated corruption crimes committed by former President Correa.
The 59-year-old centrist is the most promising of the eight candidates for the presidential election at the end of August. In a recent poll conducted by the Cedatos Institute, he was second to lawyer Gonzalez with 13 percent of the vote. The parliamentary elections to be held on August 20 are going ahead as planned.
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