With the murder of the mayor of Cocotepec, Michoacán, Enrique Velázquez Orozco, there are 92 mayors murdered in Mexico since 2000. oaxaca, Michoacan, Puebla, Veracruz Y Warrior They are the entities where 61% of these crimes have occurred, according to the consulting firm Etellekt.
In his report on political violencethe firm highlighted that during the first 38 months of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s six-year term, 15 homicides have been registered against municipal presidents.
As data, Etellekt He said that this figure is 114 and 15% higher, respectively, compared to the same period of the governments of Felipe Calderón (7 victims) and Enrique Peña Nieto (13 victims).
He warned that if the trend of crimes against mayors registered in the first three years of the current federal government, and if there is a rebound in the 2023-2024 federal electoral process, the incidence of fatalities may exceed the record observed in the Peña Nieto administration (39 mayors assassinated).
“Since the year 2000, the curve of assassinations against mayors tends to accelerate in the midst of federal electoral processes. Between 2017 and 2018, a total of 22 mayors lost their lives in attacks, an increase of 120% compared to the 2011-2012 period, which resulted in a balance of 10 fatalities. Another factor that influences the violence observed against mayors is the high probability of alternation in presidential power in the last two federal elections,” the report said.
He explained that from 2000 to January 11, 2022, violence against mayors was registered in 20 of the 32 states and 90 municipalities.
The municipality where the most mayors have been assassinated, according to Etellekt, is in Buenavista, Michoacan, where three townspeople were killed (one in 2005 and two more in 2018). That municipality is considered a red hot spot due to the dispute between criminal groups and self-defense groups.
The consultant directed by Rubén Salazar mentioned that the capital and metropolitan cities do not appear in the index of violence against mayors, since the majority of municipalities affected by these crimes are rural and have high percentages of the population living in poverty.
He mentioned that only 12 entities have not recorded homicides against mayors since 2000:
- Aguascalientes
- Campeche
- Lower California
- Baja California Sur
- Nayarit
- Queretaro
- Quintana Roo
- Sinaloa
- sound
- Tlaxcala
- Yucatan
- Mexico City
The report detailed that 64% of the 92 assassinated mayors belonged to opposition parties to the governments of their states. Of the 15 mayors assassinated in the current government, 11 of the victims belonged to parties opposed to the governors (73%).
Due to party membership, the PRI accumulated a third of the total number of victim mayors (31), followed by the PRD with 22 and the BREAD with 13. The ruling coalition parties at the federal level (Brunette Y PT), accumulate seven victims.
66% of the 92 homicides were committed by groups of armed civilians, “who used the same modus operandi of the cartels in settling scores against rival groups,” Etellekt said.
(With information from Jorge Monroy).
kg