XPost: alt.mexico, soc.women, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: sac.politics, alt.society.liberalism   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   MEXICO CITY —  Noé Ramos was chatting with voters, sharing breakfast with   
   supporters of his mayoral reelection bid in his hometown in northern   
   Mexico.   
   “It’s something very special that people give me a glass of water, that   
   they invite me to have a taco, to have a tamale,” Ramos said in a Facebook   
   livestream last month featuring him at an outdoor table in El Mante in   
   Tamaulipas state. “It motivates me to keep on working to make things   
   better. … I will not defraud them.”   
      
   An hour later, Ramos was dead. An attacker approached him on the campaign   
   trail and stabbed him multiple times.   
      
   The same day, April 19, a mayoral candidate in the southern state of   
   Oaxaca was found dead, two days after he was reported missing.   
      
   The slayings of at least 30 candidates have provided a chilling backdrop   
   to Mexico’s June 2 elections, as criminal gangs seek expanded control in   
   states where cartels already wreak havoc. The country’s largest vote ever,   
   with more than 20,000 posts up for grabs and a marquee contest that will   
   almost certainly see Mexico choose its first female president, has led to   
   one of the bloodiest election cycles of recent times — and one in which   
   voters say they are most worried about public safety.   
      
   On Wednesday, the last official day of the Mexican campaign, another   
   mayoral candidate was killed — in the western state of Guerrero, among   
   Mexico’s most violent. José Alfredo Cabrera, an opposition hopeful in the   
   municipality of Coyuca de Benítez, was shot dead at his closing campaign   
   rally, authorities said. Video circulating online showed a smiling Cabrera   
   greeting supporters as a hand holding a pistol appears at the back of his   
   head. What sound like repeated shots are heard among screams from the   
   crowd as the video loses focus. Authorities did not immediately verify the   
   authenticity of the video, but the governor’s office confirmed the   
   candidate’s slaying.   
      
   The killings this cycle, documented by human rights groups and others,   
   haven’t reached the four dozen killings of candidates before the 2018   
   election, but the Mexican consultancy Integralia has declared the current   
   campaign season the most violent in modern Mexican history when also   
   taking into account threats, disappearances, kidnappings and other acts of   
   intimidation — against not only office-seekers, but also current and   
   former public officials and “collateral” victims such as family members.   
      
   Integralia counted 560 victims of political violence as of May 1 —   
   compared with 389 victims during the 2017-18 campaign and 299 in the 2020-   
   21 midterms. It specified 316 attacks or threats against candidates as of   
   an updated report May 28.   
      
   The violence this year, as in other recent election cycles, has not   
   targeted big-name candidates for the presidency, gubernatorial posts or   
   other high-profile positions. Rather, those seeking municipal offices are   
   in the crossfire.   
      
   “It’s the Tip O’Neill phenomenon: All politics are local,” said David   
   Shirk, a political scientist at the University of San Diego, referring to   
   the late congressional leader from Massachusetts. “Mayors and mayoral   
   candidates are essentially under siege because they are a critical point   
   of influence and protection for criminal actors.”   
      
   Gangs seek to finance their own nominees — and then strong-arm or   
   eliminate opponents. Crooked mayors can deliver corrupt cops and other   
   benefits to criminals seeking dominion over smuggling routes, extortion   
   targets, municipal budgets and other opportunities in their territories,   
   or plazas. Local politicians can be more vulnerable to cartel pressure   
   than governors and other high-ranking lawmakers.   
      
   “Organized crime needs some kind of understanding with the authorities,”   
   said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a Mexican political analyst. “That may be a   
   kind of negotiation that can be friendly, or skirts legality, or involves   
   bribes and collusion — or it can be violent, with threats, extortion or   
   direct aggression.”   
      
   And buying politicians is far more certain than working through the   
   democratic process.   
      
   “Criminal organizations need guarantees,” said Bravo Regidor. “Uncertainty   
   doesn’t guarantee that the winner will be someone who agrees with the   
   deals they have made.”   
      
   Of course, being on a gang payroll is no assurance of longevity. Rival   
   factions may come calling in a country where organized crime is highly   
   fragmented.   
      
   “The real dilemma that a lot of candidates and officials face is this: If   
   they are in the pocket of one criminal group, will they draw fire from   
   another?” said Shirk, who heads the Justice in Mexico program at the   
   University of San Diego.   
      
   Another factor, of course, is protection: Hopefuls for local posts seldom   
   have the bodyguards that accompany higher-level candidates.   
      
   The violence has prompted the Mexican military to bolster security,   
   dispatching more than 3,450 troops tasked with protecting some 554   
   aspirants, with the largest deployments for presidential and gubernatorial   
   office-seekers, according to the secretary of defense. Still, there is no   
   federal escort for most candidates, who often seek out protection from   
   state and local police forces, or hire private bodyguards.   
      
   “Political violence is out of control and there is no real possibility   
   that state or federal authorities can protect those who seek help,” wrote   
   columnist Raymundo Riva Palacio in Mexico’s El Financiero newspaper. “And   
   the form in which these cartels have been empowered, with the help of some   
   politicians … leaves everyone exposed.”   
      
   On the morning of April 1, Bertha Gisela Gaytán outlined how, if elected   
   mayor of her home city of Celaya, she would target ever-mounting violence.   
   Then she took to the streets of the industrial hub with supporters. It was   
   the first day of her campaign.   
      
   A hit squad lurked. At least one assailant opened fire at point-blank   
   range, according to police and witness comments to the media. The killers   
   drove off on a pair of motorcycles. Images of Gaytán’s body lying face   
   down on the street with blood flowing from her head were soon online.   
      
   Gaytán, a 47-year-old lawyer, had sought protection from federal   
   authorities but had yet to receive it.   
      
   “We had hopes that she would make a difference because she said she was   
   going to combat the narcos,” said María Celorio, 32, a resident of Celaya   
   — which, like much of the central state of Guanajuato, has become an   
   organized-crime battleground, registering some of the country’s highest   
   homicide rates. “Instead, they killed her.”   
      
   Federal security was finally forthcoming for Gaytán — at her funeral,   
   which featured phalanxes of troops guarding Celaya’s cathedral.   
      
      
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