José Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos, an opposition coalition candidate for the post of head of the municipality of Coyuca de Benitez in the state of Guerrero, was shot dead at the close of his election campaign.
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“In the community of Las Lomas, the candidate of the PRI-PAN-PRD alliance in Coyuca de Benitez, José Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos, was killed,” a blog post by the Guerrero News Agency on the social network X said.
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Video on social media shows an assailant with a gun approaching the candidate from behind as he spoke to locals in his home community at a campaign closing event before at least 16 shots are heard.
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The day before, in the state of Jalisco, the candidate of the ruling Mexican Morena party for the post of head of the municipality of Encarnacion de Diaz was injured in an armed attack. Gilberto Palomar Gonzalez, as well as his brother and secretary, were hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
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In Mexico, 82 people related to electoral processes have been killed since last summer, 34 of them candidates for various local offices, according to the Laboratorio Electoral think tank. A total of 2,172 cases of various types of violence, including attacks, threats and abductions, were recorded in 2023-2024.
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Mexico’s general elections, in which citizens will elect a new president for a six-year term, all 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 128 members of the Senate, nine governors and more than 19,000 local officials, will be held on Sunday, June 2.
