Mexico mayor assassinated days after taking office

MEXICO CITY, Oct. 7 — The mayor of a southern Mexican city was assassinated less than a week after taking office, authorities said yesterday, the latest in a series of attacks against politicians in this Latin American country plagued by violence.

The assassination of Chilpancingo Mayor Alejandro Arcos “fills us with indignation,” Guerrero state Governor Evelyn Salgado wrote on social media, without providing further details on the circumstances.

Local media reported that Arcos had been beheaded, but there was no official confirmation.

Arcos was elected in June as part of an opposition coalition that included the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which denounced his assassination as a “cowardly crime” and called for justice.

“Enough violence and impunity! The people of Guerrero do not deserve to live in fear,” he said on X.

His assassination came a few days after that of another municipal official, Francisco Tapia, according to PRI president Alejandro Moreno.

“They had been in power for less than a week. Young, honest public servants who sought to advance their community,” Moreno said on X.

Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states, has endured years of violence linked to internecine wars between cartels fighting for control of drug production and trafficking.

Last year, 1,890 murders were recorded in the state, which is home to the resort town of Acapulco, a former playground for the rich and famous, now ravaged by crime.

In Mexico, more than 450,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands have disappeared in a spiral of violence since the government deployed the army to combat drug trafficking in 2006.

Politicians, particularly at the local level, are frequently the victims of bloodshed linked to corruption and the multibillion-dollar drug trade.

Combating cartel violence that makes murders and kidnappings commonplace in Mexico is one of the major challenges facing Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president.

Sheinbaum, the former Mexico City mayor who was sworn in Oct. 1, pledged to stick to his predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs, not bullets” strategy of using politics social approach to attack the root causes of crime.

She must unveil her security plan tomorrow.

At least 24 politicians were assassinated during a particularly violent electoral process leading up to June elections that the ruling party’s main figure won by a landslide, according to official figures. -AFP