Mexico: assassination of a just-read mayor

A mayor of a town in southern Mexico, just elected in the June 2 elections, was assassinated on Monday on a road near Acapulco, the regional prosecutor’s office in the state of Guerrero said.

Salvador Villalba Flores, elected under the label of the regional party Mexico Avanza (Mexico advances, left), was the victim of a “qualified homicide” on the Acapulco-Pinotepa Nacional road, according to the press release from the public prosecutor’s office, which opened an investigation.

Mr. Villalba was a retired Navy captain and had an escort from the National Guard – a security force -, according to the regional daily El Sur de Guerrero. But his escort did not accompany him when he was assassinated, according to the same source.

“The elected mayor was taken off the bus he was traveling in when the vehicle stopped” before being shot and killed, the newspaper added on its news site.

Mr. Villalba would have decided to run for office after the assassination of his friend Jesus Gonzalez Rios, leader of the Partido Verde de Mexico, in Copala on June 29, 2023, according to regional media.

Mexico organized the largest elections in its history on June 2, with more than 98 million voters registered for the presidential and legislative elections, the renewal of nine governors in a total of 32 states, and a myriad of local mandates.

The ruling left’s candidate Claudia Sheinbaum was elected the first female president in Mexico’s history and will have a two-thirds majority in the Chamber of Deputies and is approaching it in the Senate, according to early reports. results from the National Electoral Institute (INE).

Members of the National Guard in front of the Forensic Service building where the body of recently elected mayor Salvador Villalba Flores is located, on June 17, 2024 in Acapulco, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico / Francisco ROBLES / AFP

Around thirty candidates for local elections were assassinated, according to the NGO Data Civica.

Cartels, bands or gangs seek to “impose candidates” in the elections, and let others know that they ” do not have the right “ to present himself, the prosecutor for electoral crimes in the state of Michoacan, Victor Serrato, explained to AFP at the end of May.

In 2023, 1,890 people were murdered in the state of Guerrero, mainly due to violence and the settling of scores by criminal organizations.

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