The candidate of the Partido Movimiento Ciudadano for mayor of Cazones, in the north of Veracruz, Rene Tovar Tovar, has been shot dead at his home, according to police sources. At least 167 candidates have died since September according to consulting firm Integralia. Another consultancy, Etellekt, puts 90 deceased politicians.
A group of armed individuals tried to kidnap Tovar, but during the attempt they opened fire and he died, according to police sources consulted by the newspaper ‘El Universal’.
Since September, there have been about 800 attacks against Mexican politicians, assassinations, kidnappings, disappearances and threats included, in the campaign for the elections scheduled for this Sunday. Of them, 167 have ended with deaths, according to the Integralia study cited by the Mexican newspaper ‘La Razón’.
Etellekt, for its part, has counted 782 attacks against politicians and candidates, slightly above the 774 attacks recorded in the 2018 elections. Of these, 518 were candidates and candidates. The most common aggression is threats, of which 278 have been reported and the state with the most aggressions is Veracruz, with 117, according to Etellekt.
However, authorities such as the Secretary of the Interior of Mexico, Olga Sánchez Cordero, have ruled out that this violence is “electorally motivated.”
According to Sánchez Cordero, “clearly” differentiated motivations have been distinguished in the incidents and he has mentioned, firstly, conflicts resulting from social demands, fundamentally in rural areas and in indigenous communities, such as Chiapas, Oaxaca, Nayarit and Michoacán.
On the other hand, she has pointed out that union, peasant, popular or student organizations use the electoral situation to “pressure, sometimes in violent ways”, to achieve the satisfaction of their demands, “which have nothing to do with the elections.”
More than 21,000 popularly elected positions are at stake on Sunday, including 500 federal deputies; 15 governor positions; 1,063 positions in local congresses; 17,000 in town halls; and more than 1,900 mayoralties, which is where the most risk is perceived for the candidates.
