Brigitte Garcia, the 27-year-old mayor of Ecuador's coastal San Vicente, and her aide, Jairo Loor were found shot to death.

Their bodies were found inside a rented car on Sunday.

Police said the shots were fired from inside the vehicle. They did not say if any weapon was found on the scene or if it was a targeted assassination.

Investigators collected ballistic evidence from inside the car. They were hoping the GPS in the vehicle would help establish where the pair were before they died. There have been no arrests in the case and police were still looking for a motive.

Several politicians have been killed in recent years in Ecuador. Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated last year at a campaign rally.

Garcia, a nurse, was elected mayor of San Vicente last year for the opposition Citizens' Revolution party.

Luisa Gonzalez, the party's former presidential candidate, called it an assassination.

She said she was in shock in a post on X. "I have no words, in shock, nobody is safe in Ecuador NOBODY," she said.

President Daniel Noboa's government said it was working with authorities to ensure "immediacy in the investigation," Sky News reported.

Ecuador declared a state of emergency in January after a notorious gang leader has vanished from the prison where he was serving time.

Days later, gunmen stormed a TV station during a live broadcast. A prosecutor investigating the attack was later gunned down.