Fernando Villavicencio biography: 13 things about politician born in Alausi, Ecuador

Fernando Alcibiades Villavicencio Valencia was an Ecuadorian politician, trade unionist and journalist. Born in Alausí, Ecuador, he studied journalism and communication at the Cooperative University of Colombia.

Villavicencio and his wife Verónica Sarauz have five children together. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. In 1995, he co-founded the Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik-Nuevo País, a left-wing indigenist party in Ecuador.
2. In 1996, he joined Ecuador’s national oil company Empresa Estatal Petróleos del Ecuador; Empresa Pública Petroecuador (EP Petroecuador) as a social communicator. He later became a trade unionist.
3. In 1999, EP Petroecuador fired him. He used the settlement after his firing to open a pizzeria with his brother.
4. In 2008, Sarauz gave birth to their son Emiliano Villavicencio.
5. During the 2013–2014 Asamblea Nacional session in Ecuador, he was a parliamentary assistant to Cléver Jiménez. That time, they accused Ecuador’s 45th president Rafael Correa of having ordered an armed incursion at a hospital during a police revolt in September 2010. Correa sued him for libel and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He went to Washington, D.C. United States, sought assistance from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, returned to Ecuador and hid in the Amazon region until his sentence expired.
6. In 2015, he and Cynthia Viteri sent secret documents to WikiLeaks showing that Ecuador was using an Italian company to run a surveillance program spying on journalists, political enemies and Julian Assange in the United Kingdom’s embassy in Ecuador.
7. In 2017, he ran for election to be a member of Ecuadorian parliament but lost. After his loss, he was arrested and charged with insult and espionage after his criticisms of Correa’s administration. He later fled to Peru.
8. In February 2018, all charges against him were dropped.
9. In 2021, he ran for Ecuador’s Asamblea Nacional and won a seat for the national constituency.
10. In September 2022, his residence in Quito, Ecuador was attacked by gunfire.
11. In May 2023, after Ecuador’s 47th president Guillermo Lasso dissolved the Asamblea Nacional, he announced his candidacy for president of Ecuador in the country’s snap general election on August 20, 2023.
12. On June 10, 2023, he and his running mate Andrea Gonzalez Nader registered their candidacies under the Movimiento Construye ticket. On June 12, 2023, their candidacies were approved. On June 16, 2023, his candidacy was rejected due to insufficient information. On June 20, 2023, his candidacy was approved again.
13. On August 9, 2023, he was fatally shot in the head while entering a vehicle after concluding a campaign rally at Colegio Anderson in Quito. He was 59. The suspected shooter died in police custody after an exchange of fire with security personnel and six other suspects, who are Colombian nationals and gang members, were arrested in connection with the killing.