Elections Under Fire: In Mexico, Running for Office Might Mean Running for Cover Sanjuana Martinez - Sinembargo
go to original May 22, 2015

Mexico: 4 Candidates Assassinated, 3 Kidnapped (teleSUR English)

Democracy in Mexico is stained with blood. The State doesn't want to recognize some states in the country don’t have the conditions for people to vote freely. Narcopolitics is proving fruitful. First, by electing and imposing candidates and then executing those that won't submit to its corrupting power.

Do the conditions exist for elections in Michoacan, Guerrero, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Veracruz, Oaxaca, or Jalisco? All of those states have seen violent acts perpetrated by powerful drug cartels. In some municipalities the situation of insecurity is so serious some have said they are afraid to vote, while others say they might have to wear bullet proof jackets and hard hats to go vote on June 7th to protect themselves from shootings and drug trafficker blockades in the streets.

In the mean time, drug cartel leaders create a terrible selection process by executing those they don't like. The last ones were Hector Lopez Cruz in Tabasco and Enrique Hernandez in Michoacan.

Lopez Cruz, PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution] candidate to the ninth council in Huimanguillo, Tabasco, was executed on his doorstep, in Mecatepec and his brother was injured; while Hernandez, Movement for National Regeneration (Morena) candidate for the Yurecuaro, Michoacan mayoral office, was shot from a moving car during a campaign rally.

With this scenario the question is repetative: do the conditions exist for elections in these places where candidates have been killed regardless of the party they represent?

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Ruby Izar-Shea

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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