A candidate for councilor disappeared in a town in northwest Mexico in the middle of a wave of violence that hits several regions of the country and threatens to turn the this year's general election in one of the most violent in recent history.
The Prosecutor's Office of the northwestern state of Sinaloa indicated on Sunday that Luis Alonso García, who is a candidate for councilor for the Sinaloense Party (PAS) to represent his community in the mayor's office of Culiacán – the state capital -, disappeared since the day before along with Juan Francisco Cerón Beltrán.
State and federal authorities activated an operation to try to locate the politician and his companion, with whom communication was lost since Saturday when they were traveling through Culiacán, a town that is considered the stronghold of the powerful Sinaloa cartel and where they were kidnapped last month. and 66 people were subsequently released amid a wave of mass kidnappings.
Héctor Cuén Ojeda, candidate for federal deputy and leader of the PAS, said on his social network account
Hundreds of people and PAS militants marched in Culiacán on Sunday to demand the appearance of García and Cerón Beltrán. Cuén Ojeda told local media that his political force decided to suspend campaign events in protest of the violence in that northwestern city.
The disappearance of the local candidate occurred a few hours after the armed attack suffered during a rally by Graciela Villarreal, who is a candidate for the ruling Morena party for mayor of El Carmen in the northern state of Nuevo León. Villarreal emerged from the shooting unharmed, but a photographer on her team was injured. There are two 22-year-old people detained, who were identified as the alleged perpetrators of the attack on Villarreal.
A few days ago it was Bertha Gaytán shot to death, candidate for Morena for mayor of the central city of Celaya, state of Guanajuato. With her death, there are now 14 candidates and political aspirants murdered in the last two months, in the midst of an increasingly violent electoral cycle leading up to the general elections on June 2.
The president advisor of the National Electoral Institute, Guadalupe Taddei, reported this week that the organization has received 200 requests for protection from federal and local candidates, and that 11 declined the request, but did not offer details.
After the federal electoral campaign began in March, at least four candidates for mayor have been murdered in the states of Puebla, Chiapas, Guerrero and Jalisco.
Politicians from small communities have become the favorite target of Mexican criminal organizations, according to research carried out by think tanks, specialists and activists.
These activists have recommended that the federal authorities increase security measures in the states and municipalities in order to avoid a worsening of violence in the face of the June elections, in which more than 20,000 positions will be elected, in addition to the presidency. , eight governorates, the mayor of Mexico City and 628 federal congressmen.
On the other hand, the Prosecutor's Office of the western state of Michoacán reported that on Sunday the charred bodies of three people were located on a road in the municipality of Morelia inside a burned vehicle. The authorities began forensic studies to determine the identity of the victims.
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