- Mayoral candidateRicardo Arizmendi was shot dead at Morelos market Tuesday
- Gilberto Palomar, another aspiring candidate, was wounded at a home in Jalisco
- READ MORE: At least 34 candidates have been murdered since September 2023
By Adry Torres For Dailymail.com
Published: | Updated:
A mayoral candidate was assassinated and another was wounded in separate attacks inMexico just days before residents head to the polls to elect the country's new president and 20,000 other politicians.
Ricardo Arizmendi, who was running for mayor of Cuautla in the central state of Morelos, was shot at a market by two men aboard a motorcycle on Tuesday. A woman was also wounded in the attack.
Gilberto Palomar, who seeks the mayor's seat of Encarnación de Díaz in the western state of Jalisco, and two of his staffers were wounded in a shooting at his home while they were wrapping up his campaign, according to state security coordinator Ricardo Sánchez.
The shootings came less than 24 hours after Rubén Cruz, who is seeking to become mayor of Hueypoxtla in State of Mexico, came under fire as he was approaching his home.
'Arriving at my home they shot us, we were arriving with the staff, with friends,' Cruz told reporters Tuesday. 'They shot us. What we did was run and get in. We got scared.'
Ricardo Arizmendi, who was running for mayor in the central Mexican city of Cuautla, was assassinated on Tuesday. Authorities are searching for two suspects who were traveling aboard a motorcycle and opened fire at a market, where a woman was wounded
Gilberto Palomar González, who is running for mayor of Encarnación de Díaz in the western state of Jalisco, survived after he and two staffers were shot at a home on Tuesday
Rubén Cruz, who is seeking to become mayor of Hueypoxtla in State of Mexico, revealed that four gunmen opened fired on him, staffers and family members as they were approaching his home Monday night. No injuries were reported
As of Wednesday, authorities had yet to make arrests in any of the three shootings.
The attacks were the latest among a series of incidents in which criminal organizations have targeted politicians since the start of the election campaign in September 2023.
Mexican government figures show that 22 candidates have been murdered throughout the campaign season. However, Integralia, a public affairs consulting firm, reports that 34 have been killed.
The deadliest states were Chiapas, which borders Guatemala in the south, where eight candidate murders, and the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, where six have been killed. Four candidates were murdered in the western state of Michoacán.
Authorities found the severed head of Aníbal Zuñiga, who was running for councilman of the Guerrero city of Coyuca de Benítez, on May 16 in Acapulco
Red Cross paramedics wheelGilberto Palomar into a hospital in the western Mexico city of Encarnación de Díaz after the mayoral candidate and two aides were wounded in a shooting at his home Tuesday
Last week, two candidates in Chiapas survived assassination attempts in attacks that left nine people dead.
The severed heads of Aníbal Zuñiga, who was running for councilman of the Guerrero city of Coyuca de Benítez, and his wife, Rubí Bravo, were found on a city street May 16.
At least 100 people seeking office at the local and federal have either quit their campaigns or have chosen to run at all.
In March, at least 46 candidates Michoacán and Morelos gave up their political aspirations after receiving threats from criminal organizations
Edgardo Buscaglia, a senior scholar in law and economics at Columbia University and who has been an advisor to agencies at the United Nations, told DailyMail.com earlier this month that cartels have taken advantage by funding campaigns of candidates that turn a blind eye.
'Honest people, people who want to participate in politics cannot present themselves for fear, for fear of being murdered,' Buscaglia said.
'Many of those positions of murdered people or people who do not want to be included on the list due to threats, are later occupied by members of criminal networks who infiltrate the lists with their candidacies, candidacies that I describe in my 'mafiocratic' books.'
He cautioned that this is made possible because the Mexican government does not have the 'institutional controls that function to prevent dirty money from buying candidates or from candidates not being audited of their assets' the way it exists in the United States and countries in the European Union.
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