The coffin of slain Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio is being carried on August 11, 2023. (AFP)

Political commentator and socialist activist Phil Kelly told Sputnik Radio's Political Misfits on Wednesday that the recent assassination of Ecuadorian political figure Fernando Villavicencio highlighted "the reality that Ecuador is now what you’d describe as a failed state."

Kelly stated that Villavicencio's role in the current situation in Ecuador has given benefit to the government.

“It was interesting that in the week of this assassination, there was immediate attempts by the political establishment in Ecuador to pin this murder on Rafael Correa and the left," Kelly said, adding, "Of course, it is not and the family of Villavicencio have laid the blame firmly at the door of the government.”

According to the commentator, the increasing violence and influence of Colombian cartels in Ecuador stems from the bounce-back to neoliberal politics after former president Rafael Correa left office. He claimed that crime has been up “500%” since Lenin Moreno came into office in 2017.

Kelly said a similar statement regarding other Latin American countries, which he believes will continue to see a rise in crime if the path neoliberalism is continued.

FBI to assist in investigations

This comes especially as Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso revealed on August 11 that agents from the US FBI would be dispatched to Ecuador to assist in the investigation of the murder of Villavicencio in Quito.

“I think the important thing when we discuss cocaine and the cartel as they are in Latin America, as cancerous as they are in any society, they are in fact a sideshow or symptom of the real addiction within Latin America among some people and that's an addiction to the US dollar, an addiction of some across Latin America to be ‘good little Yankees’ who are a small sliver of the population".

Kelly believes that quite a handful of leaders are “happy to forgo their sovereignty in subservience to the US” and that the upcoming Ecuadorian presidential race will highlight candidate Luisa Gonzalez, who is running for the Citizen Revolution (Movimiento Construye) Movement headed by Correa and leading the polls.

📍Correísmo nuevamente intenta silenciarnos, confirma su temor a nuestra candidatura
Al verificar requisitos conocimos de un registro falso, se solicitó su nulidad con fecha 13 de agosto. @christianzr está afiliado a @Construye_Ecu y cumple todos los requisitos de ley#Todo25 pic.twitter.com/SWunDhaCDz
— Construye_Ecu (@Construye_Ecu) August 16, 2023

To halt the cartel influence, Kelly stressed that sovereignty must be asserted. “At the end of the day, until countries in Latin America assert their sovereignty, until they take control of their own destiny, they won’t be able to deal with these groups."

"The cartels will not be dealt with by the mainstream political establishment in Latin America, we need to see change, we need real fundamental change and political alternatives before these groups can be dealt with in the way they need to be.”

Villavicencio was not the only chaotic event in less than a week, as Pedro Briones, a member of the Citizen Revolution Party and one of the movement's leaders in the province of Esmeraldas on the border with Colombia, was killed by unknown gunmen on August 15.