Daily Times

The party of Ecuador’s slain presidential candidate on Sunday tapped a reporter to take his place on the ballot as several contenders to lead the South American nation in a vote later this month showed up for a national debate wearing bulletproof vests. Ecuadoran journalist Christian Zurita will take the place of slain candidate Fernando Villavicencio in the country’s August 20 elections, the Movimiento Construye political party announced Sunday.

Villavicencio, a 59-year-old journalist himself and known for his anti-corruption crusades, was gunned down as he left a campaign rally in the capital Quito on Wednesday night. The naming of Zurita as the party’s candidate is a reversal from Saturday, when Construye had said Villavicencio’s running mate, Andrea Gonzalez, would take the top spot on the bill. But party officials worried that Gonzalez’s candidacy might be thrown out by election authorities, since she was already registered as the vice presidential candidate for the August 20 vote. Villavicencio had been polling at second place before his shock assassination.

President Guillermo Lasso has blamed the Villavicencio’s murder on organized crime. In a sign of the apprehension now pervading the campaign, Zurita and another candidate, Daniel Noboa, both appeared Sunday evening at a television studio wearing bulletproof vests ahead of a national debate. Security was heavy.