Journalist Christian Zuritawho replaced the murdered candidate Fernando Villavicencio for the presidential election from this Sunday in Ecuadorwas “threatened with death” on social networks, denounced his Construye center party on Saturday.
The user “Cartel Jalisco N, G” left a comment on your network TikTok with the message “Christian trembles”, said the organization in a statement released by a press chat in WhatsApp and called it a death threat.
“The threats against my life and my team will not stop us, but they force us to take greater security protocols to avoid the harsh events that we experienced on August 9,” he said. zurita on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
The assassination that marked the campaign
Villavicencio, who appeared second in the intention to vote before his death according to a poll, was shot dead by a Colombian hitman on August 9, when he was leaving a rally in the north of Quito, and was replaced by Zurita for the anticipated general elections. The user “Cartel Jalisco N, G” no longer exists on TikTok.
“This fact urgently and immediately requires the intervention of the President of the Republic (Guillermo Lasso) and the State Attorney General’s Office to guarantee the life of the presidential candidate,” said his party.
He also asked the international observation missions for the elections “guarantee the validity of democracy and the transparency of this electoral process”.
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COLLEAGUE. The journalist Christian Zurita had been a personal friend of Fernando Villavicencio for more than 25 years. They had worked together on various media investigations. The government of Guillermo Lasso increased the military presence in the streets after the assassination.
Shortly before being assassinated, Villavicencio, a former journalist and former opposition legislator to the former socialist president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), accused the detained leader of the criminal gang The Choneros, ally of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, to threaten him with death.
He had also denounced parliamentarians, some of them correístas, before the prosecutor for allegedly being involved in a plan to end his life.
Relatives of Villavicencio presented a lawsuit against the government and police chiefs for “murder by intentional omission,” on the grounds that the institutions did not guarantee Villavicencio’s protection, according to what the lawyer for the former journalist’s relatives, Marco Yaulema, reported on Friday.
the candidate Luisa Gonzalezrelated to Correa, leads polls for the elections this Sunday, to which 13.4 million of the 18.3 million Ecuadorians are summoned.
Source: Ambito
