A candidate in Ecuador’s forthcoming presidential election who campaigned against corruption and gangs has been shot dead at a campaign rally.
Fernando Villavicencio, a member of the country’s national assembly, was attacked as he left the event in the capital, Quito, on Wednesday.
A state of emergency has been declared following the assassination.
Witnesses said Mr. Villavicencio, a serving congressman, and former journalist, was shot three times.
A member of his campaign team told local media the 59-year-old was getting into a car when a man stepped forward and shot him in the head.
Video from inside the building shows panicked supporters diving for cover and campaign leaflets littered across a blood-stained floor.
The suspect was also shot in an exchange of bullets with security and later died from his injuries, the country’s attorney general said on social media.
In the chaos, nine other people were injured, including a candidate for the country’s assembly and two police officers, prosecutors said.
Six people have been detained by police in connection with the assassination after raids in Quito, they added.
The first round of the presidential election is scheduled to take place on 20 August.
Mr. Villavicencio, who was married and had five children, was one of eight candidates in the first round of the election – although he was not the frontrunner and was polling around the middle of the pack.
Meanwhile, a criminal gang called Los Lobos (The Wolves) is reported to have claimed responsibility.
Los Lobos is the second-largest gang in Ecuador with some 8,000 members, many of whom are behind bars.
The gang has been involved in several recent deadly prison fights, in which scores of inmates have been brutally killed.
A break-away faction from the Los Choneros gang, Los Lobos is believed to have links to the Mexico-based Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), for which it traffics cocaine.
Suspicion for the killing had first fallen on Los Choneros, which had threatened Mr. Villavicencio last week, but Los Lobos claimed responsibility in a video in which gang members wearing balaclavas flashed gang signs and waved their weapons.
Ecuador has historically been a relatively safe and stable country in Latin America, but crime has shot up in recent years, fuelled by the growing presence of Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, which have infiltrated local criminal gangs.
The killing comes less than a fortnight before the presidential elections, in which the issue of insecurity features as the top concern.
