His head was found on Sunday on top of a car and his body in the passenger seat.
The victim was Alejandro Arcos, 43 years old, who 6 days ago had assumed the position of mayor of Chilpancingothe second city in the state of Guerrero.
Arcos was focused on addressing the damage caused by Hurricane John, which left serious flooding in the area. Weeks before, two of his advisors were also murdered.
As he said in an interview before he died, he interpreted these murders as a “threat” to those who want to fight organized crime.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who also took office on October 1, said on Monday that authorities are investigating the crime and that this Tuesday he will present his security plan.
While the transition of power takes place at the national and local level, Mexico is experiencing a new succession of violent events: to those that occurred in Guerrero, is added the death last week of six migrants who were escaping from a military checkpoint in the south of the country and the open war in the city of Culiacán between the main factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.
He came to change things
Chilpancingo, with 200,000 inhabitants, is one of the few cities in which citizens voted against the ruling party in the last elections as punishment for the wave of violence suffered by the area.
Arcos, PRI candidate and opponent of the ruling party Morena, took power from the largest party in Mexico thanks to the popular rejection of his predecessor, Norma Otilia Hernández, who was accused of agreeing with members of the Los Ardillos cartel (she denies it).
Arcos had announced a security plan called “Chilpancingo Shielding”, which consisted of hiring more police officers, acquiring more patrols and strengthening the reporting and investigation systems.
90% of the municipality, he promised the day he took office, would have public lighting.
Guerrero, a state on the Pacific coast where the resort city of Acapulco is located, has been the scene of violence for decades.
In the 70s it was the bastion of peasant and communist guerrillas, and since the 90s it has been an area of dispute between cartels linked to drug trafficking.
After a bloody dispute between two powerful organizations, the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas, other cartels have proliferated over the last two decades and their territorial power has fragmented.
Today they have control of different areas of the region the Beltrán Leyva, the Michoacana Family, the Ardillos, the Rojos, El Cartel del Sur and Guerreros Unidos, group allegedly involved in the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa students 10 years ago.
Assassination of politicians
Although the details of Arcos’ murder remain to be clarified, violence against local politicians is common in Mexico.
Every time there is an alteration of the established order, whether due to a political transition or the loss of a drug lord, some type of violence arises for the control of power or the territory that was left without a ruler.
During the 6 years of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, at least 20 mayors and 70 municipal deputies were murdered.
And in the general election campaign, at least 37 candidates for local government positions, according to the civil organization Causa en Común, were murdered. 12 of them in Guerrero.
Experts explain that these homicides serve criminal organizations to intimidate the authorities, give messages to their opponents or resolve latent conflicts with the business or military circles that surround the candidates.
At the local level, in addition, various specialized organizations have detailed that parties use the hiring of criminal entities as a political tool.
The vast majority of these murders remain unsolved. Mexico has a 90% impunity rate.
This Monday the new president, Claudia Sheinbauminsisted on the importance he will give to the issue of Security. On Tuesday he will present a strategy that includes better data collection systems, greater coordination between prosecutors’ offices and police, and guarantees for citizens who report.
He has also said that he hopes to concentrate efforts in the states with the greatest violence, such as Guerrero.
That said, the president wants to maintain the previous government’s use of the Armed Forces in security policy.
Without completing a week in office, Sheinbaum is already facing a crisis of violence. It will probably be the most
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