From journalism to politics: Villavicencio’s fight that cost him his life

Fernando Villavicencio was a leading public figure in Ecuador long before becoming a politician and making the decision to run for the presidency that cost him his life.

His more than 200 journalistic publications and his denunciations of corruption cases before the courts earned him a reputation for years as an investigator and as a scourge of irregularities in the management of public resources, mainly in the two previous governments.

As a candidate for president, he championed the fight against corruption and carried a campaign slogan in which he defended that these were brave times. “They have told me to wear a (bulletproof) vest, but here I am wearing a sweaty shirt”he pronounced at a campaign event, which was captured on video and has been widely disseminated after his shot to death on Wednesday afternoon as he left a rally in Quito.

Its beginnings go back to unionism in the state oil company, Petroecuador, but it gained public notoriety for its confrontations and accusations of former President Rafael Correa, with whom it was in direct confrontation.

The former Ecuadorian president (2007-2017), who sent a message of condolences through the social network X, formerly called Twitter, has also derogated him in the past as “rogue”, in a sort of play on words with his name and an allusion to a thief, or as “shameless coward.”

Together with journalist Christian Zurita, Villavicencio published a journalistic investigation, known as Arroz Verde, about irregular contributions received by the campaign of Correa’s then party, Alianza PAIS, which nurtured the case for which the former president was later convicted of bribery —and a part of his government leadership— to eight years in prison and that prevents him from returning to Ecuador due to the risk of being arrested.

From another journalistic revelation that was disseminated under the name of INA Papers, a case was still in progress against former President Lenín Moreno, Correa’s successor. The acronym INA alludes to letters that contained the names of Moreno’s daughters —Irina, Cristina-Karina— and to the name of an offshore company in which, according to the journalistic report, diverted public resources were received.

One of Villavicencio’s campaign flags, who had been an assembly member and president of the Oversight Commission in the last legislature (2021), was the offer of “transform this country to generate employment, production, security and justice”for which he said that he “It requires subduing the mafias.” He repeated that phrase hours before he was assassinated.

On the day of his death, he denounced, although he did not delve into details, that there were links between the political class and organized crime, an issue that he had already presented to the Prosecutor’s Office months before about the links between drug trafficking and candidates for municipal elections and provinces last February.

Villavicencio received several threats against his life, for which reason he had police and private protection. During one of his last interventions, he assured that behind one of them were local organized crime gangs related to the Mexican Sinaloa cartel and assured that his tentacles reached political groups, a version that has not been ratified by the Police.

“The main problem is that Ecuador has become a narco-state” he said in an interview with the Spanish-language television network CNN. According to his presidential proposal, the fight would be established from his government with a refined public force that will wage the battle against organized crime, he promised, sure that he would reach power.

Villavicencio or don “Town”an affectionate nickname that was attributed to him among his followers in a kind of reference to a sheriff or police chief figure during the electoral campaign, was running fourth in presidential polls that still indicated a high level of indecision.

During his time as an assemblyman, he was pointed out as close to President Guillermo Lasso. He resigned from his seat in the Legislature to run as a presidential candidate in 2023, for the Construye movement, in tandem with the environmentalist Andrea González.

Villavicencio was born in a rural area of ​​the central Andean province of Chimborazo. He was married to Verónica Sarauz, with whom he had three children. He also has two daughters from a previous engagement.

In the 1990s, Villavicencio already made his voice heard by denouncing alleged irregularities in the administration of the state oil company Petroamazonas, a subsidiary of Petroecuador, and in the concession of oil fields to transnational companies. He was part of the union committee and upon his departure caused controversy amid complaints, for benefits he supposedly received as part of a criticized collective contract that granted favorable conditions to oil workers, according to what government authorities denounced at the time.

The management of oil policy and public resources in that sector was always the main focus of Villavicencio’s investigations that shed light on opaque agreements with which the Correa government compromised Ecuadorian crude futures in exchange for million-dollar loans with banks. state in China. For this matter, the former president was called to testify to the Prosecutor’s Office, but the judicial process did not advance.

From his union origins, the politician identified himself with left-wing movements such as that of the indigenous political arm, Pachakutik, and focused on complaints about acts of corruption, especially in strategic sectors, public infrastructure works and the energy sector.

Between 2013 and 2014, he was an advisor to the assemblyman of that political store Cléver Jiménez and together with him, he faced one of the episodes that he described as the hardest of his life.

After accusing then-President Correa of ​​having committed a crime against humanity, during a police revolt in which the former president ended up detained in a Police hospital, he countersued for libel. Villavicencio was sentenced to 18 months in prison and a payment of $140,000.

But he did not serve the sentence. He went into exile in Peru in 2017 and later, he took refuge with Jiménez and his close friend and also politician, Carlos Figueroa, in the Amazon jungle the indigenous community of the Sarayacu people welcomed them, where they came to eat crocodile and monkey meat to survive.

He came out of hiding at the end of the Correa government and it was then that he began to pave the way for his political career. His murder leaves the uncertainty of how far he could have gone.

Source: AP