This is the best summary I could come up with:

QUITO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - The assassination of Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio shocked the South American country, where rising drug-related violence is a major concern for voters, leading some of his rivals to suspend campaigning.

President Guillermo Lasso said after midnight the crime was clearly an attempt to sabotage the election, but that voting would go ahead as planned on Aug. 20, albeit amid a national state of emergency with the military mobilized to guarantee security.

Villavicencio had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for defamation over statements made against the former president, but he fled to Indigenous territory within Ecuador and later was given asylum in Peru, before returning after Correa left office.

Indigenous candidate Yaku Perez and law-and-order hopeful Jan Topic both suspended their campaigns, while businessman Otto Sonnenholzner begged the government to take action.

Lasso, who called the elections early amid an impeachment bid against him, has blamed heightened violence on the streets and in prisons on criminal infighting to control drug trafficking routes used by Mexican cartels, the Albanian mafia and others, and struggled to push back on crime.

Villavicencio’s party Movimiento Construye said on Wednesday discussions had been held recently about whether to suspend campaigning due to political violence, including the July murder of the mayor of Manta.

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