Violence against candidates increases as elections approach in Mexico

Mexico will hold historic elections in June marked by the most violent electoral campaign in recent years, during which more than 30 local candidates have died and organized crime attacks have increased, a trend that could continue in the coming weeks, according to experts.

“In 2024 we have already counted more than 50 organized crime attacks against candidates and pre-candidates (…) and we will probably accumulate more in the next two weeks, just before the elections take place,” said Sandra Ley, coordinator of the Security of the México Evalúa think tank.

Attacks against electoral authorities and candidates include murders, kidnappings, disappearances and intimidation. These incidents have tripled in the last 20 years, Ley said in a event organized by the Brookings Institution, based in Washington, where it also warned about the “growing number” of candidate deaths.

More than 30 candidates for governorship positions have been murdered from June 2023 to mid-May, they reveal records from the Mexican Electoral Laboratory.

Deaths related to the electoral process in the northern country increase to 64 if local leaders, party collaborators and relatives of candidates are also included, according to data from the organization.

Respondents and election officials also face threats, harassment, and arbitrary arrests.

Historic elections with a backdrop of violence

These elections in Mexico will decide not only who will occupy the Presidency, but also nine governorships and some 20,000 government positions at all levels in 30 of the 32 Mexican states and the Federal Congress, “a total change of the political arena,” said the experts.

This type of electoral activity also tends to exacerbate the endemic violence of a nation marked by the power of organized crime.

“These elections also take place in the context of six years of the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador characterized by a significant erosion of democratic checks and balances and the combination of these weaker institutions and very violent, very powerful and ambitious organized crime is having a significant impact on the elections,” said Brookings Institute analyst Vanda Felbab-Brown.

According to Mexico Evalúa’s research, 77% of organized crime attacks are directed at municipal authorities and candidates, the majority among the positions up for election in June. “That is where organized crime tries to maintain or establish control,” at the local level, said Sandra Ley.

“We should also worry about the violence that will arise after the elections. (…) This kind of renewal of a whole set of political actors is associated with an increase in violence in general, but also in attacks by organized crime against authorities policies,” the analyst insisted.

This also influences turnout at the polls in the affected territories. “For each attack against the authorities, we see a 3% decrease in participation in those municipalities,” added Azucena Cháidez, executive director of SIMO Consulting, dedicated to the analysis of social and economic phenomena in Mexico.

An “enormous” responsibility for the next president

The June elections in Mexico will also make history because they will produce the first female president in the country’s history. The ruling party Claudia Sheinbaum and the opposition party Xóchilt Gálvez are the main candidates for the leadership of a country with high numbers of femicides and gender violence.

“There is a multiplication of violence, of attacks by organized crime against political authorities, but also of disappearances, forced displacements, extortion. Crime is taking over entire economies and societies, and that is something that none of the (presidential) candidates ) is recognizing,” Ley remarked.

The expert recognized that the arrival of a woman to the Presidency “sends a message that the situation is changing” and about the possibility of “starting to break more glass ceilings,” but at the same time it does not mean the adoption of a more ambitious agenda. feminist or specific policies regarding organized crime.

Scheibaum and Gálvez “have focused on attacking each other and we do not know about the substance of these policies, only in general,” the experts warned in the debate.

“For whoever reaches the Presidency, this would be an enormous responsibility,” highlighted the Mexico Evalúa analyst. “Otherwise, we will not be talking about 100 attacks, we will be talking about thousands of organized crime attacks on the electoral process within six years,” she concluded.

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