ECUADORANS headed to the polls Sunday in a presidential election tarnished by the murder of a top candidate, which cast a spotlight on the violence ravaging a once-peaceful nation caught up in the illicit global drug trade.
Polls opened at 7:00 am local (1200 GMT) and voting was to go on until 5:00 pm as Ecuadorans picked a successor to Guillermo Lasso, who called a snap election to avoid an impeachment trial just two years after his election.
Soldiers have been deployed across the small South American country to secure the vote following a tense campaign in which the eight presidential candidates have campaigned in bulletproof vests.
Ecuador has in recent years become a playground for foreign drug mafia seeking to export cocaine, stirring up a brutal war between local gangs.
Several political assassinations marked the run-up to the vote, with the murder of serious presidential contender Fernando Villavicencio just 11 days from the election underscoring the challenges facing the country.
“These are completely atypical elections, in a situation basically of horror that Ecuador is going through… due to the existing violence, but which manifested itself in a more acute and atrocious way” with Villavicencio’s murder, political scientist Anamaria Correa Crespo told AFP.
In 2022, the country hit a record of 26 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, higher than the rate in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.
Lasso dissolved Congress in May to avoid an impeachment amid a corruption trial.Lasso dissolved Congress in May to avoid an impeachment amid a corruption trial.
Leading the polls before Villavicencio’s murder was Luisa Gonzalez, 45, a lawyer from the leftist party of former president Rafael Correa.
However, observers say the assassination may have shaken up the race.
Villavicencio, who was polling second before his murder, was replaced last-minute by another journalist, Christian Zurita.
Hours ahead of the vote, Zurita said he was receiving death threats on social media.
