PUERTO LOPEZ (WNCN) – A small town in Ecuador confirmed election results Monday for its next mayor — except there’s one problem.
Puerto Lopez’s newly-elected mayor was fatally shot Sunday hours before the polls opened, CBS reports.
Omar Menendez, who took 46 percent of the town’s votes, was one of two people killed in a shooting at an office building. CBS said he is “the second candidate in a local mayoral election to be assassinated in Ecuador in the space of two weeks.”
CBS also said Ecuador’s murder rate almost doubled between 2021 and 2022 to 25 homicides per 100,000 people, hinting at the growing cocaine cartels as a proprietor.
After the regional office of his Citizen’s Revolution political party accepted his victory, it also said Verónica Isabel Lucas Marcillo, of the same party, would fill the mayor seat on his behalf.
