Bloomberg Línea — Fernando Alcibiades Villavicencio Valencia was born on October 11, 1963 in the Alausí canton, in the province of Chimborazo, and holds a degree in journalism and social communication from the now defunct Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia del Ecuador; he is married to Verónica Sarauz and is the father of three children.
He began his political career in the Plurinational Unity Movement Pachakutik in 1995 and his career continued the following year as a union member of the Federation of Petroleum Workers of Petroecuador.
He is an opponent of the policies of left-wing former president Rafael Correa, and in 2014 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for alleged slander against Correa, and remained a fugitive from justice for three years. After staying in the country’s Amazon region, he left Ecuador for Peru, where he was in political asylum until September 18, 2017, during the government of former president Lenín Moreno, he returned to Ecuador.
Villavicencio’s proposals as presidential candidate:
Villavicencio has defined his policies within the theme of ‘Safe Ecuador,” a plan focused on five kinds of safety: citizen, food, economic, environmental and health, and leads a movement called Construye Ecuador.
Economic proposals:
- Generate tax incentives for infrastructure modernization
- Encourage popular capitalism
- Establish tax incentives for changing the corporate structure of private companies
- Tax incentives for those who adopt practices that care for the environment and respect labor rights.
Security proposals:
- Promote the creation of a National Police University
- Provide arms and material protection to the country’s security forces
- A “purification” process within the police
- The Armed Forces will control the entry and exit of people and the fight against arms trafficking
Health proposals:
- Ensuring care for patients with chronic diseases
- Create a single digital medical record
- Implement postgraduate programs in medicine
In a tweet on July 31, Villavicencio said “in my government we will pay special attention to health security! We will improve and strengthen access to medical attention and the supply of medicines. Together we will build a future full of possibilities and success for all Ecuadorians!”
Actions as a journalist
Upon his return to Ecuador during the Lenin Moreno administration, Villavicencio went to the Attorney General’s Office to denounce an alleged misuse of public resources in the commercialization of crude oil between Ecuador and private company Petrochina.
According to his estimates, the misuse of resources would have resulted in losses of $2.4 billion for the state.
In the 2021 elections, he was elected a national congress member for the so-called Honesty Alliance, and in September 2022 he was the victim of an attack at his residence.
As an investigative journalist, he has also contributed with information to denounce cases of corruption in oil, mining, electricity, telecommunications and criminal structures.