MEXICO CITY –
Two Mexican mayoral candidates were found dead on Friday, bringing to 17 the number of contenders killed in the run-up to the June 2 election.
A candidate was murdered on Friday in the northern Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. Noe Ramos Ferretiz was running for a coalition of the opposition National Action Party and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which had governed Mexico until 2000. He was running for re-election as mayor of the city of Ciudad Mante.
Another candidate for mayor of the southern state of Oaxaca was found dead a day after his disappearance. Alberto García was running for mayor of the Oaxacan town of San José Independencia.
Oaxaca state prosecutors said García was found dead, apparently beaten to death, on an island in a reservoir near the city. In the past, drug gangs have been active in the area.
The national elections of June 2, which are shaping up to be the most violent ever recorded in the country.
Tamaulipas prosecutors said Ramos Ferretiz was attacked on Friday, but did not provide details beyond saying they are investigating.
Local media reported that he had been stabbed and published photographs showing a bloody body lying on a sidewalk. Tamaulipas has long been divided by turf wars between drug cartels. Ciudad Mante is located in the southern part of the state, relatively far from border cities such as Reynosa and Matamoros.
“We will not allow violence to decide these elections,” PRI leader Alejandro Moreno wrote on social media, where he confirmed the “cowardly murder” of Ramos Ferretiz.
In Oaxaca, the state electoral board condemned the death of García, who disappeared along with his wife, the current mayor of San José Independencia, earlier this week. The wife was found alive.
The electoral board called Garcia’s death a “murder” and said such crimes “should not occur during elections.”
In early April, mayoral candidate Bertha Gaytán was shot to death, hours after she requested protection and began her campaign. Gaytán was shot to death on a street in a town on the outskirts of the city of Celaya, in the north central state of Guanajuato. She had just launched her campaign for mayor of Celaya.
Mexico’s drug cartels have often targeted assassination attempts against mayors and mayoral candidates, in an attempt to control local police or extort municipal governments.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged in early April that drug cartels often seek to determine who will fill the mayor’s office, either by presenting their own candidate or eliminating potential rivals.
“They make a deal and say, ‘This person is going to be mayor; we don’t want anyone else to sign up to run,’ and whoever does, well, they know” what to expect, he said.
The recent killings have prompted the government to provide bodyguards to about 250 candidates, but those running for municipal office, although most at risk, are the last to receive security.
Violence against politicians is widespread in Mexico. In early April, the mayor of Churumuco, a town in the neighboring state of Michoacán, was shot to death at a taco restaurant in the state capital, Morelia.
At the end of February, in another city in Michoacán, two mayoral candidates were shot to death within a few hours of each other.