A 60-day state of emergency has been declared in Ecuador after the assassination of the presidential candidate on Wednesday Fernando Villavicencioannounced the head of state Guillermo Lasso, while the date of the elections remains August 20.

“The armed forces are currently mobilized throughout the national territory to guarantee the security of citizens, the tranquility of the country and the free and democratic elections of August 20,” the Ecuadorian president said in a joint statement with the head of National Electoral Council Diana Atamaid, broadcast from YouTube.

Atamaid stated for her part that “the date of the elections remains August 20, in accordance with the legal constitutional mandate”.

As he was leaving a campaign rally where he was the keynote speaker, Villavicencio, Ecuador’s presidential candidate in the August 20 election and second in the polls, was assassinated by gunmen yesterday, Wednesday, evening in the capital Quito.

Fernando Villavicencio, a former trade unionist, then journalist before becoming a centrist politician and elected to parliament, 59, was among the eight candidates in the first round of the presidential election.

He was murdered while leaving a hall in the northern part of the capital where he had just finished a pre-election rally, around 18:20 [τοπική ώρα• στις 02:20 ώρα Ελλάδας]according to Ecuadorian media.