2023-08-14 17:32:14
The party of Fernando Villavicencio, shot to death in Ecuador, proclaimed journalist Christian Zurita this Sunday as the new presidential candidate in the elections on August 20. The Construye movement had nominated the environmentalist Andrea González Náder, who completed Villavicencio’s presidential formula, as a candidate on Saturday, but changed the decision due to fear that electoral regulations would invalidate it.
Reproaches to the electoral authority
“The candidate we have decided upon in agreement with Construye is Fernando Villavicencio’s fighting brother,” said González Náder this Sunday. “There was no person more suitable than Christian Zurita, who has been brave to tell the truth,” said the candidate for vice president this Sunday at a press conference at a hotel in Quito.
After Villavicencio’s assassination, which occurred last Wednesday as he left a campaign event in Quito, Construye first announced that he would be replaced in the candidacy by his running mate. However, the law establishes that candidacies already registered are “unavoidable”, so González Náder must remain as a candidate for the vice presidency.
“It would be understood that in times of crisis the CNE (National Electoral Council) should be the entity that has approached us,” lamented the vice-presidential candidate, who denounced “the lack of will of a public body in a country in the middle of of a democratic crisis”. The law allows political parties to designate a substitute in case of death prior to the election. Before her candidacy is qualified by the CNE, a challenge phase opens.
Journalist with no experience in politics
Christian Zurita said that he accepted the nomination because he might not “under any circumstances allow Fernando’s participation, following his heinous and brutal crime, to be lost” due to an eventual annulment of the pairing. “Vengeance once morest the mafias will be to vote for Fernando Villavicencio, we are going to fulfill what he dreamed of: having a country with memory, dignity, respect and without impunity,” added the brand new presidential candidate, presented to the media with a bulletproof vest as a measure of security.
Zurita, born on April 4, 1970, has an extensive career in investigative journalism, both in print media and on television. Starting in 2008, he specialized in corruption, organized crime, and drug trafficking, which brought him closer to Villavicencio, with whom he partnered on various investigations.
In 2009, he published the book El discrete encanto de la Revolución Ciudadana, a critic of the movement headed by then-President Rafael Correa, co-authored with Villavicencio and others. In 2011, Correa sued Zurita and his colleague Juan Carlos Calderón for non-pecuniary damages for revealing his brother’s alleged irregular contracts. The case was archived at the request of the former president. A judge ordered them to pay two million dollars.
Unlike Villavicencio, who was a member of the National Assembly, Zurita lacks experience in the public sector. The Construye movement might not participate in the electoral debate this Sunday, where they asked to leave an empty chair for Villavicencio. US FBI agents arrived in Ecuador this Sunday to help the local government investigate his recent murder.
The CNE decided to hold the elections for next Sunday despite the assassination of one of the candidates in a race led, according to the latest polls, by former Assemblywoman Luisa González, candidate of the Citizen Revolution, the movement headed by former President Rafael Correa.
The winner of these elections will complete the 2021-2025 period, interrupted by the invocation last May by the current president, Guillermo Lasso, of the constitutional mechanism of “cross death”. In this way, Lasso dissolved the National Assembly at the moment that it was preparing to vote on his dismissal, and forced this call to extraordinary elections that at the same time implied a reduction of his mandate.
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