Mexico’s electoral violence spikes hours before campaigns conclude

By Natalia Cano, CNNE

(CNN) — Several attacks against political candidates have been reported in Mexico as the campaigning period for the country’s largest election in history draws to a close.

With just hours before the electoral campaigns officially conclude on Wednesday, a string of violent acts against candidates and their staff have been reported across the country, from Jalisco in the west to Chiapas in the south.

In Morelos, a state in south-central Mexico, the attorney-general reported that Ricardo Arizmendi Reynoso, a substitute opposition candidate for the municipal presidency of the city of Cuautla, was assassinated in a shooting on Tuesday.

In Jalisco state on the same day, Gilberto Palomar, the ruling Morena party’s candidate for the mayorship of the town Encarnacio de Diaz, was hospitalized after an attack by armed individuals on the party’s local offices.

In the central State of Mexico, the truck of a mayoral candidate for Chalco, Eduardo Díaz, was shot, according to a local representative of the Green Ecologist Party.

Meanwhile, in Puebla, central Mexico, Juan Sandoval, a Citizen Movement candidate in the municipality of Tehuacán, was attacked outside his campaign office but was unharmed, his team reported.

As of Wednesday, no arrests have been reported.

Several organizations have reported that the run-up to this election has been the most violent in the country’s recent history. However, figures from independent groups and firms differ from those of the Mexican government.

The research group Data Cívica has reported 31 homicides, Consultora Integralia has reported 34, and consulting firm DataInt registered 38 in a report published on May 21.

The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, acknowledged on Tuesday the deaths of 22 candidates during the 2023-2024 electoral process, of which eight victims were candidates accredited by the National Electoral Institute (INE) or before local electoral bodies, according to the official.

The Mexican government had previously reported on April 2 that there had been at least 15 candidate deaths since the electoral process began on October 1.

On Wednesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed that the electoral violence is the result of a link between past governments and criminal groups.

“What we are suffering in the case of electoral political violence still has to do with that – links that were established between the authorities and crime,” the Mexican president said in his morning press conference.

International electoral observers, accredited by INE to witness Sunday’s general elections, have expressed concern about the violence plaguing the country ahead of the polls.

“Certainly, this is more of a call to investigate the facts and take measures so that these issues do not tarnish the elections and do not cause damage to Mexican democracy,” José Miguel Insulza Salinas, head of the Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States, said Wednesday.

Mexico will hold its general election on June 2, when nearly 100 million people will be called to vote. There are 20,375 positions on the ballot, of which 19,746 are local and 629 are federal, including the presidency.

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