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Voters in Ecuador headed to the polls on Sunday amid a wave of political violence unprecedented in its modern history.
The South American country will choose from a crowded field of eight presidential candidates and elect a new legislature. If no presidential candidate wins with more than 40 per cent of the vote and by a 10 per cent margin, a run-off will be held in October. Given the large number of candidates, pollsters expect a second round.
The snap election was thrown into chaos last week when Fernando Villavicencio, a centre-right anti-corruption candidate, was assassinated as he left a rally in Quito, the capital.
Police are holding six Colombian nationals in connection with his murder, while the government has pledged to pursue the plot’s “intellectual authors”. Authorities have yet to find the motive.
Leftist Luisa González was the frontrunner in the polls ahead of a media blackout earlier this month. Her mentor, former president Rafael Correa, has been campaigning on her behalf from exile in Belgium, where he is living to avoid a corruption conviction at home.
The security crisis in the once-peaceful country of 18mn has dominated much of the campaign. About 3,500 people have been killed in the first six months of the year, with 4,800 people murdered last year. The latter is four times the number in 2018, according to the interior ministry.
Drug-trafficking groups have expanded their presence in recent years, taking advantage of relatively lax security at ports along the Pacific.
“The first thing that needs to happen in Ecuador is that the violence ends,” said José Castillo, a 30-year-old music producer in Quito who plans to vote for González. “But the rightwing won’t be able to stop it.”
Doménica Ochoa, an architect who supports investor-friendly centre-right candidate Otto Sonnenholzner, said: “Security is my number one concern. Because without security there won’t be foreign investment in Ecuador.”
Political violence is roiling the country, with three politicians murdered in the past month, including Villavicencio. Agustin Intriago, the mayor of port city Manta, was assassinated at a public event in late July, and Pedro Briones, an organiser loyal to Correa, was shot dead in Esmeraldas, a violent coastal province on the Colombian border, on Monday.
On Saturday, a shootout occurred near Sonnenholzner, a former vice-president, while he was dining at a restaurant in Guayaquil. Police have said the gunfire was not directed at the candidate but was part of a nearby robbery. Another candidate, Daniel Noboa, the son of banana magnate Álvaro Noboa, said on Thursday that his motorcade had come under fire. Interior minister Juan Zapata later said Noboa was not targeted.
Zapata has said 100,000 police and soldiers would be deployed on Sunday across the country. Voting is mandatory. Initial results are expected later on Sunday evening.
Whoever wins the presidency will have to manage a widening fiscal deficit and rising debt-servicing costs in the country, a big oil and shrimp exporter.
Domenica Avila, an Ecuadorean political analyst and researcher at King’s College London, said the violence around the election might benefit Jan Topic, a law-and-order candidate, and Christian Zurita, who replaced Villavicencio on the ticket, but added that it reflected badly on Ecuador’s institutions.
“How can we speak about democracy when state institutions can’t guarantee that Ecuadorians safely exercise their right to vote?”
Zurita, a former journalist, voted at a school in Quito’s financial district, amid a phalanx of security. “These are difficult and dark times for the country but we’re ready,” he said, wearing a flak jacket and ballistic helmet, and flanked by heavily armed police and soldiers with Kevlar shields. “All possible threats against us must be left in evidence.”
Mónica Silva, a retiree living nearby, said she felt safe voting for Zurita but security was the most important issue. “Criminals have us terrified to go outside,” she said. “They have us living in fear.”
César Theran, a driver, voted for Topic. “We’re trying to find a way to bring security and peace back to Ecuador,” he said at a voting centre a block from where Villavicencio had been shot, as a patrol of soldiers passed by. “Criminal groups need to be wiped out at once. We cannot give them an inch.”
The hastily arranged election was triggered in May when President Guillermo Lasso dissolved congress using a constitutional clause known as “mutual death”.
The former banker, who is not seeking re-election, was facing impeachment charges in the opposition-controlled national assembly over alleged embezzlement related to contracts signed before his tenure.
Two referendum questions are also on the ballot, over whether to halt oil drilling at a field in the Amazon and mining in large tracts of land near Quito known as the Chocó Andino. Voters are expected to approve both.