Gisela Gaytán had just arrived in central Mexico’s industrial heartland for the first day of her mayoral campaign when the gunfire rang out.
A moment later, her lifeless body fell in a pool of blood.
The broad-day assassination of Ms. Gaitán, a 37-year-old lawyer, reflects a frightening trend in this year’s Mexican election. She is one of 36 candidates for public office who have been killed since last summer, according to a New York Times analysis, making this election one of the bloodiest in recent years.
The killings of the candidates suggest a threat to the heart of Mexican democracy as voters prepare to cast ballots in a heated election next month that could produce the country’s first female president. milestone The largest Spanish-speaking country in the world.
But analysts and law enforcement officials say the growing drug cartels are spreading fear in local elections as they extend their reach into extortion, migrant trafficking and Food production.
Adding to the sense of terror, not only candidates but also their families have increasingly been targeted, with at least 14 of them killed in recent months. Some cases have been particularly gruesome; in Guerrero state, the dismembered bodies of a city council candidate and his wife were found this month.
Armed groups have also turned some killings into mass shootings. In Chiapas state, gunmen this month killed a mayoral candidate and seven other people, including the candidate’s sister and a little girl.
To maximize their profits, these hydra-like criminal groups need compliant elected officials. Threats and bribes can ensure a small-town mayor or city council member turns a blind eye to illegal activity. But as bloodshed in cities across Mexico shows, candidates who dare to deviate from such cooperation risk being killed, analysts say.
As a result, many people dropped out of the race. Some parties withdrew from certain towns because they couldn’t find willing candidates. Instead of reaching out to voters publicly, some local campaigns moved primarily online.
More candidates are being targeted almost every week. At least eight more people have been killed across the country since Ms. Gaitán’s death on April 1, which rocked the city of Celaya.
These attacks Aggravation In the states, the gangs have splintered into multiple criminal groups, all of which are fiercely vying for power. Another reason for the bloodbath is the sheer scale of the elections, which are the largest in Mexican history, with more than 20,000 local offices up for grabs.
Sandra Ley, a security analyst at Mexico Evaluates, a public policy group, said the killings showed that organized crime groups were being shielded by corrupt or intimidated local officials.
Ms Ley said drug cartels needed “access to resources and information that is critical to their day-to-day operations”.
Despite the attacks, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and parts of his ruling More National Renewal party have mostly downplayed the danger.
However, the assassination of Ms. Gaitán, a member of the Morena movement, shocked the country and Mr. López Obrador addressed the issue at a press conference the next morning.
“These events are very unfortunate because these people were fighting to preserve democracy,” he told reporters. But he was also quick to say the killings were linked to high levels of violence in Zelaya’s home state of Guanajuato and not to Mexico’s election.
Last week, the Ministry of Security explain It provides protection to 487 candidates.
Security experts say part of the reason for the increase in drug cartel violence is tied to Mexico’s president’s own security strategy. López Obrador took office in 2018 promising to overhaul the country’s approach to fighting crime, focusing on tackling the poverty that drives young people into gangs rather than actively fighting drug cartels on the streets.
López Obrador has called the program “hugs, not bullets,” and it has had some success. decline In the mass killings that occurred when security forces clashed with armed groups – Although recent reports indicate There are exceptions During his administration.
“But it has, arguably, had very detrimental adverse effects,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexican security consultant. He said criminal gangs have been left mostly undisturbed, becoming bolder and expanding their operations into new areas.
Electoral violence has now spread to states that have not seen such attacks in past elections, most notably Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state. The region has been embroiled in bloodshed as two major drug cartels and factions battle for control of the country’s southern border with Guatemala. At least six people running for office have been killed in Chiapas since December, according to a New York Times count.
Such killings are destroying Mexico’s democratic fabric.
“Who would want to go to a rally where there’s a risk of drone bombs?” asked Guillermo Valencia, leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Michoacan state, after gunmen assassinated two mayoral candidates from a rival party in the city of Maravatío in February. the same day.
Antonio Carreño, president of the Civic Movement party in Michoacan state, said at least seven of his party’s candidates had dropped out of the race and he doubted whether Mexico could have free elections and the rule of law.
“The question is clear: where is the democracy?” he said.
Ms. Gaitán’s state of Guanajuato, which has a booming economy but also growing security concerns, illustrates the risks facing those running for office.
Ms. Gaitan, who had just started her campaign and was accompanied by a private female bodyguard, was well aware of the dangers she faced. Just hours before she was shot, she announced Some of her plans At a local rally to make Celaya safer.
She promised to curb the activities of corrupt officials, improve police pay and working conditions, and install panic buttons and surveillance cameras throughout the city.
Before she was killed, the party had submitted a request to federal authorities to protect her and eight other mayoral candidates in Guanajuato, said Jesús Ramírez Garibay, secretary general of the party’s state committee. But he added that the request had been stuck in the bureaucracy for weeks, bouncing back and forth between federal and state authorities without being approved.
“These candidates were left without protection because the state electoral body and the state government did not intervene,” Mr. Ramirez Garibay said. “They started their campaigns alone, with the blessing of God.”
Alvaro Cabeza de Vaca, Guanajuato state’s security secretary, said in an interview that his office had never received a request for protection against Ms. Gaitán, arguing that she did not need it based on a risk analysis the state conducted in December of each candidate’s vulnerability.
“We found that she was a low risk,” Mr. Cabeza de Vaca said. “But that’s not important. What’s important to me is that I didn’t receive a request. Whoever requests protection gets it, regardless of our analysis.”
Alma Alcaraz, Morena’s candidate for governor of Guanajuato state, said she began receiving threats after Ms. Gaitán’s death. “Messages started coming in: ‘You are next, withdraw from the race, quit,’ ” she said.
Cabeza de Vaca said Guanajuato state and city police are currently protecting 255 local candidates.
Nevertheless, Guanajuato and Especially Celaya — A melting pot of violence.
Guanajuato has a series of manufacturing plants, Nearshore Outsourcing Prosperity Mexican companies have been moving their industries from China to Mexico. But it is also the site of a long-running conflict between two major drug cartels, Santa Rosa de Lima and Jalisco New Generation, over extortion and methamphetamine trafficking.
A lucrative trade in stolen fuel, a weakened police force and turf wars among criminals have turned Guanajuato into a killing field. Homicides have fallen from pandemic levels, but government data shows that more than 10,000 people have been killed in the city. Maintain a very high levelrecorded at least 2,581 homicides in 2023, more than any other state in the country.
The Guanajuato state attorney general’s office said this month that authorities had Seven suspects arrested A suspect from an unnamed “crime cell” is connected to this killing, and possibly more.
As political tensions mount over Ms. Gaytan’s killing, other local candidates are also pondering what it means to remain involved in politics.
Juan Miguel Ramírez, a university professor running in Ms. Gaitán’s place, said the campaign had become a surreal event, with a dozen uniformed soldiers guarding him even as he taught classes.
On a sweltering day in May, he sounded confident about his chances of winning, but he acknowledged that the climate of fear surrounding Zelaya and the fate of his predecessor had led him to tone down his rhetoric during the campaign.
He doesn’t share her focus on the city’s security challenges.
“There are a lot of criminal gangs in Celaya,” he added. “Some of the gangs here don’t like this proposal. Based on this, my proposal now is more generic.”
