👨🏻‍⚖️in Ecuador running and holding office🤵🏻‍♂️ is like playing Russian Roulette🔫

17JAN25 "Who is Next? Ecuadorian mayors live in fear over murders: “We don’t know who will be next??! January 17, 2025

Guayaquil (Ecuador) (EFE).- The mayors of Ecuador's 221 municipalities live with the uncertainty of not knowing "who will be next" to be killed by organized crime, warned the president of the Association of Municipalities of Ecuador (AME), Patricio Maldonado,

after the death of five of them at the hands of hitmen in the last two years.

In an interview with EFE, Maldonado said that the murder of his colleagues has marked a before and after in the way they carry out their public activities, as he believes that this work makes them "more vulnerable" to being victims of these crimes.

"It is increasingly evident that top city officials are not attending events and it is because they do not want to expose themselves. I think it is natural. Any of us do and would do the same because we do not know who is next, we do not know what they are responding to," said Maldonado, mayor of the town of Nabón, in the Andean province of Azuay.

A critical situation:
"The situation in the country is critical and no one wants to lose their life in this way," he added.

On Saturday, Eber Ponce, mayor of Arenillas, a municipality in the southern province of El Oro, bordering Peru, was murdered after leaving a public event. The official was attacked while riding in his vehicle and was shot five times by a man on a motorcycle.

The murder of the mayor of Arenillas was preceded in 2024 by those of Jorge Maldonado, from Portovelo, also in El Oro; José Sánchez, from the Camilo Ponce Enríquez canton, in Azuay; and those of Brigitte García,

from the municipality of San Vicente, and Agustín Intriago, from Manta, both from the coastal province of Manabí. The latter died in 2023.

Security for mayors in Ecuador:
Following the crime in Ponce, the AME again asked the government of President Daniel Noboa for greater security for mayors, but Maldonado said that their requests have not yet been heard.

"I hope I have the opportunity to meet with the Minister (of Government) José De la Gasca as soon as possible, because this cannot continue to wait,

we cannot sit back and watch who will be the next mayor targeted by crime, and watch blood continue to be shed in the streets of our country," Maldonado reiterated with concern.

The president of the AME said that the situation is complex, since of the 221 local authorities, at least 100 are at risk due to threats they have received, but only 55 of them have police escorts. Of the remaining 45, only a few have been able to afford private security.

They tell us that unfortunately the operational capacity that they (the Police) have would not allow them to serve the 221 mayors, but not all of them are required," said Maldonado,

adding that the majority of those who are at higher risk are located in coastal cities, where there is also a higher crime rate.

The mayor considered that there has been "a lack of concern" on the part of the Government and criticised that when it comes to other authorities they see "security contingents of up to eight people".

"Why don't we stop assigning so many people to a single authority and instead dedicate ourselves to addressing these requests from local authorities?" Maldonado asked, who predicted that after Ponce's murder the number of mayors requesting police protection will increase.

Instilling fear:
The mayor said he believes that these murders perpetrated by "interested groups" are part of a strategy to "instill fear" in the population. "It is a way of saying: if we did this to the mayor, we can do this or more to anyone else," he explained.

He said that, although the motives for the crimes are still unknown, many of the threats are related to actions taken against,

for example, land trafficking, reasons for which 18 other municipal officials such as directors or councillors have also suffered attacks. "This worries us greatly," he said.

The rise in criminal violence has made Ecuador the country with the highest homicide rate in Latin America in 2023, with a rate of 47 per 100,000 inhabitants,

a situation that also led President Noboa to declare an "internal armed conflict" in early 2024 to fight organized crime gangs, which he began to call "terrorists." -

https://efe.com/mundo/2025-01-17/alcaldes-ecuador-asesinatos/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1JgALym6MPdEzJ4QCroLQPPwrbski5eyq2Bemjo8kAtiKBFLLG2pO65Ck_aem_-2-f1oqk14X3KwbWkTeg7w