Fernando Villavicencio, the Ecuadorian presidential candidate assassinated as he left a campaign event, was not the frontrunner in the upcoming elections, but he had won support for his tough-on-crime and anti-graft platform.
His slogan was “Es tiempo de valientes” – It’s time for the brave.
Few doubted his courage even if they did not agree with him. His past as a combative investigative journalist had earned him effusive supporters – but also powerful enemies.
Villavicencio, 59, did not have a long career as an elected politician, but he had an extensive track record in the public sphere for his investigative journalism and as a fearless whistleblower of corruption.
It was his vehement criticism of former president Rafael Correa, a leftist populist with an authoritarian streak who governed Ecuador from 2007 to 2017, that made him a recognisable figure in Ecuador.
One of his investigations uncovered an alleged bribery scheme that put Correa and high-ranking government officials on the ropes. Correa was eventually sentenced to eight years in prison in 2020 but was already living in exile in Belgium, where his wife is from.
By then, Villavicencio had already been forced to go underground after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for defaming Correa. The journalist fled to the Indigenous territory of Sarayaku in Ecuadorian Amazon in 2014, where he continued to make accusations against high-ranking members of the Correa government, including the ex-president himself.
Villavicencio wrote about his experience on the run in La Derrota del Jabalí (The Defeat of the Boar) and corruption in the oil industry in El Feriado Petrolero (The Oil Holiday).
In 2016, a judge ordered his imprisonment again for using hacked emails in an investigation into alleged corruption at an oil company. Villavicencio then sought refuge in Lima, where he was granted asylum until 2017, when Correa’s successor, Lenín Moreno, allowed him to return to the country.
The following year, Villavicencio worked with Guardian reporters to reveal the multimillion-pound spy operation mounted by the Ecuadorian government to monitor visitors to Julian Assange during the WikiLeaks founder’s seven-year stay in the country’s London embassy.
He harboured rancour towards Correa, whom he accused of persecuting his family, and latterly worked as a political activist against Correa’s political allies when he left office.
Villavicencio, who recalled a childhood marked by poverty in the Andean region of Chimborazo, considered himself a leftist. He was the eldest of five children, who remembered working by day and studying by night when his family moved to Quito when he was 13.
He became a union leader at university aged 18 and made his debut in politics in 1995 with the leftist Indigenous movement Pachakutik, which campaigned for Ecuador to be recognised as a plurinational state.
Latterly, his political affiliations moved to the right. In 2020, he announced his candidacy for the national assembly and won a seat as a lawmaker where from 2021 he was a member of an oversight committee which put him at odds with the majority party of his rival Correa.
Ultimately, his vote was seen as crucial to avoid the dismissal of Guillermo Lasso, who triggered a constitutional “mutual death” clause in May dissolving his country’s 137-member national assembly and calling snap elections.
A politician by nature but a journalist by profession, a provocateur and an adept communicator, Villavicencio predicted that his outspokenness might lead to disaster. After receiving death threats earlier in his campaign, he announced he would continue to make public appearances.
“To remain silent and hide at a time when criminals are murdering citizens and authorities is an act of cowardice and complicity,” he tweeted. “I confirm my decision to continue the daily struggle until the mafias are defeated.”
