A state of emergency for 60 days was declared in Ecuador after the assassinationyesterday, Wednesday, of a candidate in the presidential elections, announced the head of state Guillermo Lasso, while the election date remains August 20.
“The armed forces are currently mobilized throughout the national territory to guarantee the security of citizens, the tranquility of the country and the free and democratic elections of August 20,” the Ecuadorian president said in a joint statement with the head of National Electoral Council Diana Atamaid, broadcast from YouTube.
Atamaid stated for her part that “the date of the elections remains August 20, in accordance with the legal constitutional mandate”.
As he was leaving a campaign rally at which he was the keynote speaker, Fernando Villavicencio, a candidate for Ecuador’s presidency in the August 20 election and second in the polls, was shot dead by gunmen yesterday evening, Wednesday, in the capital Quito.
Fernando Villavicencio, a former trade unionist, then journalist before becoming a centrist politician and elected to parliament, 59, was among the eight candidates in the first round of the presidential election.
He was murdered while leaving a hall in the northern part of the capital where he had just finished a pre-election rally, around 18:20 [τοπική ώρα· στις 02:20 σήμερα ώρα Ελλάδας]according to Ecuadorian media.
Source: News Beast
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