<p dir="ltr">Ecuadorians voted this Sunday in tense extraordinary presidential and legislative elections marked by a wave of unusual criminal violence that included the assassination of a candidate and added to an institutional and economic crisis. <p dir="ltr">Almost 13.5 million citizens are empowered to choose, from among eight applicants, a president who completes the term of conservative Guillermo Lasso until 2025. <p dir="ltr">The corre&iacute;sta Luisa Gonz&aacute;lez arrived at the elections leading all the polls, but not with a number of votes that would allow her to avoid a second round scheduled for October 15. <p dir="ltr">The once peaceful South American country has become in recent years a center of operations for foreign and local drug cartels that impose a regime of terror with killings in the streets and in prisons, with kidnappings and extortion. <p dir="ltr">Added to the violence is an institutional crisis that has kept the country without Congress for three months, when the unpopular Lasso decided to dissolve it and call early elections to avoid impeachment in a political trial for corruption.