This is John Batschler, a conversation with my colleague, Professor Evan Ellis of the

US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute about the assassination in Keto, Ecuador, during

a presidential cycle.

The man who is dead will live in Sencio, as a journalist who would become a politician

to speak against the corruption of China, of former presidents, of the Narco-terrorism

gang, of the whole region.

He's now gone, and the race turns to Korea, the former president, who cannot enter the

race, but has influence about several candidates.

It's a mystery that will be unraveled over the next days, but right now, Villain Sencio

is gone, and Ecuador is in turmoil, though the previous president, President Guillermo

Lasso, says the election goes on in 11 days.

Here's Evan explaining.

Good evening, John.

Fernando Villavicensio, who I had the pleasure of knowing personally, was a journalist and

an anti-corruption crusader.

He started out making his career in trying to expose some of the petroleum project-related

corruption tied to the Chinese back in the early 2010s, wrote a number of books on it.

Later became a leading opponent to the Korea-era corruption in general, and then with Korea being

replaced by Lenin Moreno, and now Guillermo Lasso's government on the center right.

Villavicensio actually came to occupy a place in Congress and heading up an anti-crime commission.

So he was a well-known anti-corruption crusader, and in the process made a lot of enemies.

Now it wasn't clear which enemies were the ones that did him end in the end.

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