Wednesday’s assassination of a presidential candidate is the second high-profile political killing in less than a month in Ecuador. Fernando Villavicencio was killed as he left a political rally – and popular city mayor Agustín Intriago was shot dead while attending a public event only two weeks ago. During Guillermo Lasso’s presidency, eight public officials or candidates for office have been killed and several have survived murder attempts.
How can we understand the spiral of political violence in Ecuador? How did Ecuador go from being one of the safest countries in Latin America to being one the most violent countries in the region?
Prison gangs have taken democracy hostage in Ecuador, and the government has played a prominent role in this horrifying situation. President Lasso has effectively stood by while crime organisations with links to foreign drug mafias have seized control of the prison system; at the same time, the president has criminalised political protests and democratic dissent.
Lasso, who part-owns one of Ecuador’s largest banks, is an old-fashioned neoliberal surrounded by far-right libertarians and media moguls. In May, amid impeachment proceedings and corruption accusations, the president disbanded the national assembly and called for early elections, triggering the bloodiest political campaign in Ecuador’s history.
Political violence and prison violence are connected in Ecuador. In 2021 the national police assumed control of Ecuadorian penitentiaries, and since then, about 400 inmates have been killed during violent riots. Under police oversight, prison gangs gained power by supplying crime intelligence in exchange for extravagant privileges, such as the administration of an entire prison wing – or turning a prison yard into a tilapia fish pool. Prison violence spread to the streets and the political arena, where citizens became victims of shootings and extortion, and politicians received death threats and were victims of brazen attacks. According to official reports, most people killed on the streets have no links to organised crime – and several government officials are currently under police protection.
Some claim that organised crime has penetrated political parties and security forces. I believe the problem is more complicated. Criminal organisations are political actors with real statecraft. Moreover, in Ecuador, criminal power and political power are mutually constituted and increasingly indistinguishable. Crime bosses behind bars regularly broadcast social media videos that bizarrely resemble official government content: short video pronouncements that mimic a president flanked by cabinet members.
But there are alternatives. We know enough about organised crime and neoliberal governance to wake up from this narco nightmare. Prison gangs are powerful because their leaders control the narrative and the streets. The government must deactivate the crime intelligence mechanism that has given criminal bosses leverage to negotiate prison privileges – and to treat entire cities as though they were fiefdoms.
Unfortunately, Ecuador is heading in the opposite direction. The prison administration has been militarised and authorities insist on solutions centred on producing more prison intelligence and building more prison infrastructures. More prisons will only give more negotiating power to gang bosses, and we should also consider that most inmates are victims of daily prison gang violence, too. We need to listen carefully and attentively to the civil rights activist Angela Davis: imprisonment entails the divestment of rights. We don’t build democracies with prisons.
Political violence destroys the democratic fabric and terrorises the people. The assassination of politicians is part of a broader process by organised crime groups to undermine democracy. Authoritarian voices grow louder and a dangerous nostalgia for military establishments is gaining traction. Ecuador has reached a tipping point in its political history. Its people go to the polls in less than 10 days – and it is imperative that democratic processes, including a peaceful transfer of power, take place so that the country can be rebuilt.
As security budgets balloon in Ecuador and US security agencies are called in to support, social spending dwindles; feeble public services approach extinction; formal employment is the privilege of a few; and migration out of Ecuador soars. The challenges for the next president are multiple. In addition to re-establishing basic state capacities, the country needs urgent prison and police reforms.
But the main problem right now is that the government has little political power over police and security policy. In fact, it is increasingly dependent on the police and the prison system to manage social problems such as unemployment, poverty and inequality.
The institutions of policing and imprisonment must be defunded rather than empowered. The government needs to recognise the role of the state in the production of prison and street violence – and reorient its strategy. The “war on drugs” is not the answer. It has failed; and the militarisation of cities and territories will only worsen the situation.
Jorge Núñez is an anthropologist and currently visiting scholar at SUM, University of Oslo
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