Skip to main content

The killing of Fernando Villavicencio: when a nation loses its north

By Jimbo Ar

The killing of political opponents is not a new occurrence in history. Back in 44 B.C., Julius Cesar was assassinated by 60 Roman Senate Opposition members after he was stabbed for roughly 30 times. (National Geographic Society, 2022). However, in more recent years there have been other killings of political opponents. For example, in 2003 left-wing opposition leader Chokri Belaid of Tunisia was killed outside of his house; on April 2021, Chad President Idriss Deby Itno was killed – he was declared elections’ winners that year-; Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was murdered during a campaign speech in 2022. (A Look at High-Profile Political Assassinations This Century, n.d.)

However, political foes also took care of disputes in a different way, especially in the US, where duels were normal. For example: Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, Button Gwinnett and Lachlan McIntosh, and Secretary of State Henry Clay and Senator John Randolph in 1826, dueled due to different circumstances. These duels took place in a gentlemen manner, in order words at least at the time of attack one knew it. It was a face-to-face argument. (A Future American President’s Deadly Duel - National Constitution Center, 2021)

On August 9, 2023, eleven days prior to presidential elections; Fernando Villavicencio, presidential –center right- candidate, was killed during a rally in the north side of Quito. It was precisely the moment when democracy died in the country. Even considering the weak Rule of Law in Ecuador, Political opportunism and cynicism, the insecurity levels in the country; this was just a moment of despair, of solitude, a moment where the north of the country was lost.

Villavicencio’s dead represents the current state of the country. A country where interest groups –of different types- have the control of everything. And where things don’t go their way, they impose their way with terror and awe.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wisdom from the Gossip Crowd

By
Last week, Dan Klein had met with a group of students on a draft of his recent paper. During the discussion he had raised a question that all students with the love for liberty usually ask themselves , "How come I get it? How come all these other people I know get it, but the everyday citizen does not get it?" The "it" being government intervention within our personal lives being more harmful and not as efficient as the market. Those in the room shared his agony with the question and for me coincided with the question, " Why does the battered wife not leave her beating husband? " The solution was simple when I sat around a table with my cousins and my wife and heard a discussion of a guy who felt he owned the world going out with other girls and yet his girlfriend stays by him. When the remark was made that his girlfriend was stupid for staying by him, I heard the words that made me understand why people still don't get "it". " She belie...
2 comments
Read more

Subjective Value through Non-Austrians

By
James Buchanan in his book The Reason of Rules(10.2.9) states: The individual is the unique unit of consciousness from which all evaluation begins. Note that this conception does not in any way reject the influence of community or society on the individual. The value structure of an isolated human being may be totally divergent from that of such a person described by membership in one or many social relationships. The presupposition requires only that societal or communitarian influences enter through modifications in the values that are potentially expressed by the individual and not externally. Armen Alchian and William Allen in Exchange and Production: Competition, Coordination, and Control : Groups, organizations, communities, nations, and societies are best understood by focusing on the incentives and actions of their members. A business, union, or family may be formed to further some common interest of its members, but group actions are still the results of decisions of individu...
2 comments
Read more

Saying No is hard; but in this case at what cost

By Jimbo Ar
Ecuador’s President, Daniel Noboa, called the electorate to the ballots on a National Referendum. The eleven questions established for this political process were in two main fields: security and labor market reforms. The Referendum took place on April 21, 2024.      The official results of the National Referendum are that in 9 out 11 yes-no-questions the Ecuador’s electorate gave the option of Yes a majoritarian support to the Administration’s plans. However, two questions the support leaned towards No; those questions main focus was on reforms to labor and foreign investment. The following graph show the results of the Referendum. Graph 1 Results of the National Referendum Source: CNE (National Electorate Council for it acronym in Spanish)        In the graphs, question D (3) stated that: Do you agree that the Ecuadorian State should recognize international arbitration as a method for resolving disputes in investment, contractual, or commercial matte...
Post a Comment
Read more