The Mexican Election Under the Shadow of Violence

37 Candidates executed

Claudia Sheinbaum’s margin of victory in Mexico’s presidential election turned out to be larger than many forecasters expected. The candidate of the MORENA party obtained 59.3% of the vote, more than double that of her rival, Xóchitl Gálvez, whom she beat by almost 32 percentage points. She beat her in almost every state in the republic.

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, former head of government of Mexico City, belongs to the leftist party MORENA founded by the current president of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Xóchitl Gálvez was running under the PAN, PRI AND PRD known to be more conservative party.

Now that the election is over, we are starting to see accusations of fraud, but the problems is deeper than what we think. Allegations of fraud is the least of the problems in this Mexican election.

Mexicans went to the polls under the shadow of violence with 37 candidates murdered. Two days before the vote, the elections were tainted with more than 320 attacks against politicians in this election, according to the Electoral Coordinator. Guerrero, Chiapas and Michoacán accounted for half of the homicides.

This is how a sicario executed José Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos of the PRI-PAN-PRD who was a candidate for the mayoral office in Coyuca de Benítez, Guerrero while campaigning.

José Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos was executed in a basketball court while campaigning. The sicario was killed by the escorts of the candidate.

The murders of candidates have become a phenomenon of Mexico local politics.

“I don't think we have to wait for the number of fatalities to know if this will exceeded past violence during presidential elections. This electoral process has been the most violent when you look at other aspects of the nature of violence, such as attacks and threats,” said Daniela Arias during an interview with the newspaper El Paiz. Arias is the Electoral Coordinator.

There are other evidence that suggests that violence in this election reached levels that have not been seen before. At the end of April, there were around 170 incidents against politicians.

This election marked a trend that was not foreseen: organized crime crossed a new line by imposing its law in the middle of the campaign.

In addition to the 37 murders of candidates, another 58 homicides were recorded directly related to the election; this among family members, politicians who were not participating in the race and campaign workers.

The violence has touched all political parties. MORENA has the highest number of homicides of candidates with 11.

The most common attacks were threats: 131 politicians were intimidated in this electoral process and more than a hundred decided to abandon their aspirations for fear. This figure may be just the tip of the iceberg, because many threats are not reported or made public.

The Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador predicted that the elections “ will be the cleanest, freest elections in the history of Mexico.”

López Obrador is the mentor of Sheinbaum. We can expect the status quo, more hugs.