The mayor of the coastal town of La Libertad, Francisco Tamariz, close to former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017), denounced today that he was the victim of a shooting attack on the eve of the early general elections this Sunday in Ecuador.
“They tried to KILL ME,” said the politician through his account on the social network X (formerly Twitter), adding that there are “more than eight witnesses” to the attack recorded around midnight on Friday and in which the police apparently participated, according to what he stated. the AFP news agency.
Tamariz pointed out that he was unharmed in the attack along with his wife and two other relatives who were traveling in an armored vehicle, which was the target of about 30 shots.
Correa, whose candidate Luisa González is a favorite for tomorrow’s presidential election, replied on his X account the complaint that the mayor of La Libertad -in the southwest of Ecuador and with some 100,000 inhabitants- had disclosed on the same platform.
The Police and the Government have not ruled on the fact.
Tamariz later said on Facebook that upon returning from the port of Guayaquil (southwest), his armored van was shot at by two people in civilian clothes who got out of a police vehicle.
“In a matter of seconds they began to riddle the vehicle (…), they began to shoot at us, they never asked who was there,” said the official in a statement he offered with his wife. Both appeared with bulletproof vests.
“If (the car) were not armored, Ecuadorian brother, I would not be here. It would be impossible for me to be talking to you with 30 shots that were (…) directed at the truck where I was transporting myself,” he added.
Ecuador has faced a wave of violence linked to drug trafficking in recent years with massacres in prisons, which have left more than 430 prisoners dead since 2021 and a record homicide rate of 26 per 100,000 inhabitants in the streets in 2022, almost double than the previous year, recalled the Europa Press news agency.
As he left an event in Quito on August 9, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio (center), who was running second in voting intentions according to a poll, was shot dead.
In the middle of the campaign for tomorrow’s elections, another mayor, a candidate for deputy and a local correísmo leader were also assassinated.
On Thursday, during the closing campaign, presidential candidate Daniel Noboa (right) denounced an attack with shots against his caravan, from which he escaped unharmed. However, the authorities contradicted his version.
Source: Ambito
