Luisa González, who has pledged to revive Rafael Correa’s social programmes, to run against Daniel Noboa in October

A protege of Ecuador’s former leftist president Rafael Correa will face the son of one of the country’s richest men in a runoff presidential vote in October, after first-round voting on Sunday failed to produce an outright winner.

With more than three-quarters of ballots counted, Luisa González, who has promised to revive Correa’s social programmes, was tallying just over 33% support, while Daniel Noboa, the son of the prominent banana businessman and former presidential candidate Álavaro Noboa, was on 24%.

Security is high since the murder of Fernando Villavicencio as candidates hope to overturn crime rates and a struggling economy

Ecuadorians are voting to choose a new president they hope will lead the country out of a wave of violence and economic troubles, after a campaign darkened by bloodshed.

Candidates have pledged to fight sharp increases in crime, which the current government blames on drug gangs, and improve the struggling economy, whose woes have caused a rise in unemployment and migration.

Citizen Revolution party’s Pedro Briones fatally shot less than a week after assassination of presidential candidate

The unprecedented violence shaking Ecuador has claimed the life of another political leader, bringing the number of politics-related killings in the last four weeks to three, including that of a presidential candidate.

The fatal shooting of Pedro Briones a organiser for Citizen Revolution, the party of the former president Rafael Correa, was confirmed by Luisa González, the frontrunner in Sunday’s special presidential election and a member of the same party.

Killing of Fernando Villavicencio ahead of elections comes as country struggles with surge in drug-related violence

Millions of Ecuadorians will have seen the phone camera footage showing the last seconds before presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed, shot through the windows of a white pickup truck after being escorted by unarmed policemen who were helpless to save him.

The images that followed showed panic and chaos as the burst of gunfire sent screaming supporters to the ground. Another clip filmed inside the campaign meeting, which Villavicencio had just left, showed panicked followers fleeing or ducking for cover and bloodstains on the tiled floor.

Shock and horror after Fernando Villavicencio, who campaigned on tough-on-crime platform, killed in burst of gunfire in Quito

Ecuador’s terrifying descent into violence and criminality has reached a new low with the assassination in broad daylight of a presidential candidate campaigning on a tough-on-crime and anti-graft platform.

Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist who had collaborated with the Guardian, was shot and killed in a burst of gunfire on a street in Quito as he left a campaign rally on Wednesday evening. Gunfire broke out as the candidate approached his car, sending supporters screaming and diving for cover.