Another political murder in Mexico ahead of elections
A Mexican mayor has been killed amid a spate of political assassinations in the violence-wracked country.
Alejandro Chavez Zavala, a member of the right-left coalition led by the National Action Party (PAN), was shot by gunmen and later died of his wounds in a hospital. The mayor of the western town of Taretan had been running for re-election.
This was the second such murder in a week after a candidate running for federal office was shot dead while taking a selfie with a supporter.
Political assassinations have rocked Mexico’s electoral season ahead of nationwide elections on July 1. Voters will decide over 3,000 down-ballot seats and elect a new president.
Chavez's death follows the disappearance of Ismael Aguirre Rodriguez, a mayoral candidate in the small town of Nadadores in Coahuila state. Aguirre went missing on Tuesday after he stepped out to buy drinks, according to local media.
At least 113 candidates and politicians have been killed across the country since last September, according to Mexico City-based security consultancy, Etellekt. This has been the bloodiest election campaign in Mexico’s modern history.
"The risk going forward is that there will be reluctance to participate in local politics because it has become so dangerous," said Michael Lettieri, a historian at the Center for US-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
Anger has been rising against the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) over record levels of violence, sluggish economic growth and political corruption.
President Enrique Pena Nieto launched a war on drugs in late 2006, however, criminal gangs still wield influence among elements in Mexican police, judiciary, and government.
According to official figures, more than 200,000 people have been murdered and over 30,000 have disappeared since the government’s controversial military offensive against organized crime -- although how many of those incidents were linked to gang activity is unknown.
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