The Ecuadorian authority accepts the candidacy of the substitute for the assassinated presidential candidate

The electoral authority of Ecuador gave free rein to the presidential aspirations of Christian Zurita, the replacement of the assassinated political leader, by dismissing an appeal filed by the ex-president’s leftist force Rafael Correa to prevent his candidacy.

Correísmo claimed that Zurita appeared registered with the center-right Renovación Total (Reto) party and not with Construye, which gives presidential endorsement, for which reason he would be incurring double militancy.

Zurita maintained that a document linking him to Reto was false, for which reason he asked the National Electoral Council (CNE) to revoke its validity for the first round on Sunday.

The CNE agreed with him and accepted “the nullity” requested by Zurita, according to what Diana Atamaint, president of the entity, told the press. Zurita’s alleged conflict would have prevented him from being a candidate for power for violation of electoral regulations.

He “Correísmo again tries to silence us, confirms his fear of our candidacy”pointed out earlier in X (formerly Twitter) Construye, the center party to which Villavicencio belonged, second in the intention to vote before his death, below the correísta Luisa González, according to the firm Cedatos.

Zurita celebrated the opinion of the CNE: “We are a few hours away from the official candidacy of Christian Zurita and Andrea González”, his formula for the vice presidency, he expressed from Guayaquil. Now the Council should leave the candidacy firm.

Also a journalist and critic of Correísmo like Zurita, Villavicencio was shot dead by a Colombian hitman last Wednesday as he left a rally in Quito.

Before the crime, he accused the arrested leader of the criminal gang “The Choneros” of threatening to kill him.

When he was a member of the National Assembly dissolved in May by President Guillermo Lasso, a measure that gave way to early elections, he also filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office against a group of parliamentarians, including correístas, who were apparently involved in a plan to murder him.

Constructs expressed in the network X that “The vile and desperate reaction of correísmo in every day after the murder (of) Fernando, including this challenge, is the confirmation that we are the most feared candidacy by the mafias.”

Because he was not qualified as a presidential candidate, Zurita could not participate in the official debate on Sunday night, in which the other seven candidates intervened as it was mandatory.

Villavicencio, a staunch opponent of correísmo, was an investigative journalist whose work led Correa, who has lived in Belgium since he left power in 2017, to be sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for corruption.

Source: AFP