MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuadorian party picks yet a new candidate to replace Villavicencio

Zurita and González Náder wear police bulletproof vests

Only hours after announcing that Vice Presidential candidate Andrea González Náder would pick up the baton from the assassinated Fernando Villavicencio, Ecuador's Movimiento Construye recanted Sunday and picked journalist Christian Zurita to top the ticket for the Aug. 20 elections. Náder thus returned to her original slot, it was explained in Quito.

In justifying the sudden change of heart, the party cited fears that the National Electoral Council (CNE) would not validate that choice.

Construye resolved “that Fernando Villavicencio's brother, Christian Zurita, be the one to accompany me in order not to let the CNE [have grounds for my] disqualification,” González Náder said in a press conference.

Read also: Ecuadorian party picks yet a new candidate to replace Villavicencio

Zurita's candidacy has not yet been recognized by the CNE. “So far we do not have clarity on how we can and should proceed,” Party Secretary Iván González also explained.

Zurita, now 53 years old, and Villavicencio unveiled through their journalistic work the corruption case for which former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison. In 2011, Zurita and his colleague Juan Carlos Calderón were sentenced to pay US$ 2 million in moral damages for the publication of a book revealing irregular contracts signed by Correa's brother

While there are still no certainties about the intellectual authors of Villavicencio's murder, Police Chief General Fausto Salinas said in a press conference that “different coordinations were established through Interpol in order to know the police records” of the six Colombian gunmen under arrest, who are known to have been involved in drug trafficking cases in their country.

After the crime, two assassins shot at the former candidate's bodyguards in Quito. According to Ecuadorian Police, the Colombian who shot Villavicencio dead has been identified as David Castillo López. He took 9 shots and died.

Villavicencio reported before his death that alias Fito, leader of the Los Choneros group, had threatened him. On Saturday the gang leader was transferred from one correctional facility to a maximum security prison in Guayaquil (southeast).