The Ecuadorian Jan Topic, who is 40 years old and has money, wants to become president of his country. He was a member of the French Foreign Legion and he only talks about security. Faced with seven other candidates, in a disoriented country, this supporter of the hard way could create a surprise on Sunday August 20, in the first round of the early presidential election in Ecuador, which is held at the same time as the legislative elections. The assassination by bullets, on August 9, of one of the competitors, Fernando Villavicencio, at the end of a meeting, eleven days before the election, came to upset the campaign and all the forecasts.
Guillermo Lasso, the outgoing president, decided in May to dissolve the National Assembly, which wanted to try him for embezzlement and dismiss him. He preferred to shorten his own mandate and he is not a candidate for re-election.
The murder of Mr. Villavicencio was attributed by the police to a group of Colombian killers. “Violence has brutally imposed itself as the great voter of the ballot, notes Pedro Donoso, director of the communication agency Icare. This is a new fact in Ecuador and analysts are still unable to understand it. » The Ecuadorian authorities attribute to the drug cartels the explosion of violence that the country has known for five years. ” How did we get there ? », ask the Ecuadorians.
“The crime committed against Fernando Villavicencio is unfortunately only one crime among others”, observes Carla Alvarez, of the Institute of Advanced National Studies, recalling that 29 candidates were killed during the local elections in February and that the mayor of the city of Manta was assassinated in July. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of homicides quadrupled, from 1,118 to 4,603, and it exceeded the 3,000 mark in the first six months of 2023. Prisons have become the scene of repeated massacres. More than 500 prisoners have been murdered in custody since 2018.
“transit country”
“Violence fell on us like an epidemic of plague”sighs Maria Guamani, who sells newspapers in the street, showing the photo of a severed hand in a pool of blood published by a local daily. “The increase in violence is not only quantitative, says Carla Alvarez. We had never seen here in Ecuador these images of hung, mutilated or cremated corpses. » Perched in the Andes, the capital, Quito, remains largely spared from violence. The large port of Guayaquil, from where tons of clandestine cocaine leave, has become the epicenter. More than 40% of the country’s murders are committed there. “Guayakill”write the graffiti artists.
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