Mexico City, Mexico.
Mexico It faces a new escalation ahead of the June elections, with dozens of politicians assassinated in six months at the hands of organized crime trying to expand its power.
pressure from drug traffickers and other gangs It also includes kidnappings, burning houses and funding candidates, according to the government, which denounces the existence of an “organized crime party”.
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According to authorities, they have been killed since September 66 politicians, including two last Thursday: Yuriel González and Melquiades Vázquez, aspiring mayors of Chihuahua (north) and Veracruz (east).
The criminals “seek to strengthen their operations through intimidation and increase their political influence,” Security Minister Rosa Rodriguez denounced, announcing last week a plan to protect candidates in parliamentary and regional elections.
Rodriguez added that in some places, criminals “designate” applicants to control budgets and extort money from governments and their suppliers.
In this context, Ignacio Sánchez, a pro-government candidate for mayor of Puerto Morelos, a neighbor of the tourist resort of Cancun (east), was assassinated on February 24.
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“He was a well-liked guy, he walked alone, not like those who are linked to organized crime walking with bodyguards. It was a political crime. It was clear that he would win,” a close friend told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Sánchez, 42, told people around him that an opponent “offered five million pesos (about $ 239,000) to anyone who killed him,” the source added.
Mayor “Romper”
In Mexico, there are a dozen drug trafficking organizations and other gangs dedicated to fuel theft, drug retailing and migrant smuggling, among other crimes.
The Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel and a new side of the Juárez Cartel “are trying to sponsor candidates,” says Anabel Hernández, author of the book “Los señorres del narco.”
“If the mayor of a city gets (wins) because of the (mixture) of organized crime or white-collar crime, he will be a wimp,” warned President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The 2018 election campaign, in which the left-wing president was elected, was the bloodiest since the Revolution (1910-1924), with about 700 attacks on politicians, of which 152 were assassinated (including 48 candidates), according to a study conducted by the consulting firm Etellekt.
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Political violence “continues to be reinforced at the local level,” the company added, noting that no one was arrested for the killings committed in the current war.
Behind trace of blood there is a claim of organized crime to “place mayors who guarantee impunity for local operations,” says Gerardo Rodríguez, a security expert at the Autonomous University of Puebla.
But there are also “political leaders” who “use violence because their power is threatened,” says Rodriguez.
Dangerous alternation
In the same vein, Rubén Salazar, director of Etellekt, notes that the phenomenon “grew as alternation processes progressed” in Mexico, especially since 2000, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lost the presidency after ruling for seven years. decades.
For Salazar, that year “a system of vertical control exercised by the president failed” at the local level. So, “when mayors start to have the power to nominate their candidates, crimes start to increase,” Salazar explains.
Etellekt points out that most politicians killed in the current election period “belonged to parties opposed to state governments.”
The Mexican Local Government Association documented 192 crimes of mayors, former mayors and local politicians between 2006 and July 2020.