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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.

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