GUILLERMO LASSO has created a “failed state,” indigenous organisations said at the weekend, blaming Ecuador’s president for a wave of lethal violence including last week’s assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador said the sooner Mr Lasso steps down, the sooner action to reverse the surge in crime could begin.

Ecuador’s homicide rate has multiplied fivefold in the six years since socialist leader Rafael Correa relinquished the presidency.

Confederation president Leonidas Iza said that gangs have been able to operate with impunity because the Lasso administration tried to downsize the state.

“We cannot allow bullets to define a democratic process,” Mr Iza said, before quoting a German analyst who compared Ecuador’s situation to that of Mexico in the early 2000s, when powerful drug cartels began to dominate whole regions.

“There is a direct responsibility for this wave of insecurity and the advancement of organised crime,” Mr Iza said. “[President Lasso’s] downsizing model dismantled the entire security system and the judicial function … he has led us to a failed state.”