a new mayor assassinated, the second in three days

The mayor of a mining town in southern Ecuador was assassinated on Friday April 19, police announced. This is the second incident of its kind in three days in this country plagued by drug trafficking and criminal groups.

“This morning, Jorge Maldonado, mayor of the canton of Portovelo, was the victim of gunshots which caused his death”police said, on. Mr. Maldonado was killed by “two criminals riding a motorcycle, while he was carrying out personal activities” in a district of Portovelo, according to the police. On Wednesday, the councilor of another small mining town in the south of the country, Camilo Ponce Enriquez, in the province of Azuay, was shot and killed.

This is the fifth Ecuadorian mayor assassinated in a year and the third in less than a month. In March, the young mayor of San Vicente, in the province of Manabi, was assassinated in similar circumstances.

Security and energy crisis

Prosecutors, journalists and politicians are regularly victims of local criminal organizations linked to Mexican and Colombian cartels. On August 9, 2023, opposition presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead after a campaign rally a few days before the election.

This new assassination comes two days before a referendum and a national consultation, requested by the Ecuadorian president, Daniel Noboa, on reforms aimed at fighting organized crime. Some 13.6 million voters are being asked to decide, for example, whether they agree with the extradition of Ecuadorians to countries wanting to try them for their links to organized crime.

Since mid-January, Ecuador has been facing a serious security crisis caused by criminal gangs. Daniel Noboa, elected president in November 2023 for eighteen months, declared the country in “internal armed conflict” and deployed the army to neutralize around twenty of these groups. Since then, at least a dozen politicians or local officials have been assassinated.

For the past week, Ecuador has also been facing a serious energy crisis, with severe electricity rationing for the population and an emergency review of electrical and hydroelectric installations. As a consequence of the drought, this energy crisis would also be the result of “sabotage” senior officials linked to his political enemies, according to Mr. Noboa.