The mayoral candidate, who was killed a few hours before the opening of the polls, won the election in the Ecuadorian city of Puerto Lopez, the BBC reports.

Omar Menendez, 41, was shot and killed by gunmen who burst into the room where he was staying with his team on Saturday. A teenager was also killed in the attack and police are still investigating the motive for the attack, while no arrests have been made.

A member of Menendez’s party is expected to serve as mayor in place of the slain politician who won the election until new elections are held.

The municipal elections took place in the context of a rising crime wave due to increasingly violent groups of drug dealers.

Omar Menendez was not the only politician killed in the run-up to the election. Two weeks earlier, the mayoral candidate of the coastal city of Salinas, Julio Cesar Faracio, was shot dead. Police have arrested the suspect, a man who was recently released from prison after serving a sentence for drug trafficking, local media reported, as quoted by the BBC.