36 Local Candidates Have Been Assassinated in Mexico. And the Election is Still 2 Months Away. By Kevin Sieff – Washington Post
This election season has been the most violent in Mexico’s recent history, with 36 candidates killed since September, and dozens of other politicians and campaign officials slaughtered.
That macabre statistic has created a fresh challenge for the country’s political parties: They are now trying to fill dozens of candidacies left open by the assassinations…
So far, roughly 8,000 people have been killed in Mexico this year, a continuation of the horrific violence of 2017, when about 23,000 people were slain, a record. With presidential, parliamentary and local elections scheduled for July 1, the violence has crept into the country’s political class.
Mexican newspapers have begun publishing lists of the candidates slain across the country. Political killings have tripled from the 2015 elections, according to research from Lantia Consultores.
Criminal groups are using violence to try to influence candidates, analysts say, and establish their power over local and state politics. In some cases, they might be targeting politicians who have refused to show them deference or pay them off. In other cases, candidates might have formed alliances with one criminal group, and later been targeted by a rival group…