Simeon Tegel

Few political assassinations will have been as predictable as Fernando Villavicencio’s, the Ecuadorian presidential candidate and anti-corruption firebrand gunned down in Quito this week.  The brutal murder took place in a country that in recent decades has been largely free of serious political violence, notwithstanding the ferocious inter-party struggles that have seen both coups and the persecution and exile of opponents.  Yet Villavicencio, a 59-year-old former investigative journalist, did not just anticipate his demise – he repeatedly cited the death threats he was receiving from the drug traffickers he vowed to crack down on. And at times, he almost appeared to welcome the danger.

Lima, Peru For the last 17 months, Peruvians have been wondering what it would take to see the back of Pedro Castillo, their staggeringly incompetent and deeply unpopular far left president. On Wednesday, they got their answer — when Castillo made a botched attempt to metamorphise from an elected head-of-state into an even more inept version of that trope of Latin American history, the caudillo or authoritarian strongman. Cornered by anticorruption prosecutors and facing an impeachment vote that evening, the 53-year-old former rural schoolteacher and wildcat strike leader decided to take the bull by the horns.