 "Mayoral candidates murdered in Mexico amid rising political violence. Reuters")
Two mayoral candidates in Mexico were reported killed in a single day, taking this month’s toll to three.
The first killing took place in Tamaulipas, a state plagued by organized crime situated on the US border, where candidate Noe Ramos was stabbed to death. Authorities have launched a manhunt to get hold of the person accused of killing Ramos.
As per local media, Ramos, a centre-right candidate seeking another term as the mayor of Mante, was walking on the streets to meet residents when a man with a knife attacked him on Friday.
Ramos subsequently died of his wounds, state security spokesman Jorge Cuellar told Milenio television.
Meanwhile, a second attack occurred in the southern state of Oaxaca where mayoral candidate Alberto Antonio Garcia was found killed on Friday after he went missing earlier this week, according to the state prosecutor’s office.
Authorities had been searching for Garcia, a candidate with the ruling Morena party, and his wife, Agar Cancino, the current mayor of San Jose Independencia, after they were reported missing on Wednesday.
While Cancino was found alive on Friday, her husband was found dead.
Mexico, which is scheduled to go to polls in June, has become a breeding ground for political violence.
Earlier this month, another candidate for mayor was shot dead on the very first day of her campaign in the city of Celaya.
The candidate, Bertha Gisela Gaytán, running for the country’s ruling party Morena, was shot at in a town as she was walking in the streets with activists and supporters during an election campaign.
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Organized crime is once again preying on local candidates across swaths of the country where cartels dominate.
Before Gaytán’s death, two mayoral hopefuls in the town of Maravatio in neighboring Michoacan state had lost their lives to violence.
On February 10, a man running for Congress for the Morena party in the sprawling Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec was fatally shot in the street alongside his brother. He had allegedly received threats from a local union.
Many candidates, fearing for their lives and learning about their colleagues’ deaths, have even dropped out of the electoral process.