The entity announced the opening of an investigation into the kidnapping and death of Vera “who was found dead today”, according to a statement on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
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The councilor's body was found with his hands tied and bloodied in a forest in the province of Guayas, a target of violence linked to drug trafficking, according to a photo sent to AFP by one of his party colleagues.
Vera was a member of the right-wing Social Christian Party, and her murder joins that of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, shot on August 9 as he left a rally in Quito.
The once peaceful South American country has become, in recent years, a center of operations for foreign and local drug cartels, which impose a regime of terror with massacres, kidnappings and extortion.
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On Thursday, the local government of Durán, neighboring the troubled port of Guayaquil, denounced the “alleged kidnapping of Bolívar” and asked the police to discover his whereabouts.
The councilor was wearing a shirt from the Ecuadorian football team, which played a match on Thursday against Argentina, according to the images.
AFP journalists recorded the moment when police and members of the Public Ministry removed the body from an area close to a road north of Guayaquil, which connects the cities of Daule and Salitre. Nearby, a group of women were crying.
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“How many deaths?”
Bolívar Vera was elected councilor of Durán for the period 2023-2027.
“The Municipal Government of Durán expresses its most sincere condolences to the family and friends of councilor Bolívar Vera (…) in the face of this great loss”, indicated the city hall on the social network X.
Mayor Luis Chonillo recalled the “more than 30 murders” that have occurred in the region since July 26, when the president, Guillermo Lasso, declared a state of exception at the national level to control violence with the military. Among the victims is the municipality's planning director, Miguel Santos.
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“How many deaths does the President need to hear our insistent appeals?” questionor Chonillo, who decreed three days of mourning.
Ecuador is facing a wave of violence linked to drug trafficking, which controls prisons and the fight for the drug market with blood and fire. Since 2018, the national homicide rate has quadrupled.
Electoral violence
Located between Colombia and Peru, the world's largest cocaine producers, the small South American country has managed to avoid mafia violence. But for some years now, gangs allied with Mexican and Colombian cartels have been imposing terror.
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Political violence intensifies a few weeks before the second round of presidential elections, on October 15, with the murders of a presidential candidate, a mayor, a candidate for deputy and a leader of local Correísmo.
Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist and one of the favorite candidates for the first round of the presidential elections on August 20, was shot dead eleven days before the elections.
The next president of Ecuador will be defined between the left, represented by Luisa González, political protégé of former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), and the right of Daniel Noboa, son of one of the richest men in the country.
The winner will govern until 2025 to complete the term that originally belonged to Lasso, who dissolved Congress and called early elections to avoid possible dismissal in an impeachment process.
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