The coldness of the Spanish left-wing in the face of the murder of Fernando Villavicencio

@ElentirENG ES 8·10·2023 · 17:32 0

The assassination in Quito of the center-right candidate Fernando Villavicencio has had a very mixed response in Spain.

Fernando Villavicencio, center-right candidate for the presidency of Ecuador, was assassinated
The communist Gustavo Petro, drug trafficking and the applause from which only Vox distanced itself

The messages of the presidents of the Popular Party and Vox

This morning, the president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, spoke through a message on Twitter addressed to the Ecuadorian people and President Guillermo Lasso, expressing "my condolences for the brutal assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio" and adding: "Democracy must prevail over infamies like yesterday."

At noon, the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, wrote a message on Twitter stating: "The assassination of Ecuador's presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, is the sad demonstration of everything we denounce and fight. Organized crime, the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group are the greatest threat facing free nations. My support for the Ecuadorian people."

Silence from Sánchez and his ministers and from the left-wing parties

The reaction of the left parties has been very different. At the time of publishing these lines, the PSOE, Podemos and Sumar have not yet published any message about what happened through their social networks. This coldness in the face of an event that has caused enormous commotion in a sister country like Ecuador has also been reflected in the government's reaction: on Twitter, Pedro Sánchez and his ministers have not published any message about the murder.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs dispatches crime in two lines

The only exception has been José Manuel Albares, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who has limited himself to sharing the brief message published by his ministry, which states: "Spain regrets and condemns the assassination of the Ecuadorian presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio. We support the electoral process in Ecuador, its democracy and the authorities so that this tragic death be investigated and the culprits brought to justice." The note published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dispatches the crime in just two lines. The extreme brevity of this note contrasts with others recently published by the same department.

The treatment of the news in the media related to the left-wing

Likewise, the left-wing media have adopted a curious treatment of the news of the murder of Fernando Villavicencio. Media very close to the government of Pedro Sánchez, such as El País, Cadena SER, Eldiario.es, 20 Minutos and Público, they omitted that the assassination candidate was center-right. But in addition to hiding his political affiliation, perhaps so that their audience does not deduce who may have encouraged the assassination, Eldiario.es has described the assassination as a "controversial candidate", while 20 Minutos has defined him as a "controversial journalist". It is worth wondering if they would do that news treatment and say that in a headline if the murder had been a left-wing candidate.

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Photo: PSOE.