Two mayoral candidates in Mexico shot dead as crime wave against politicians continues

Two mayoral candidates from a town in the state of Michoacán, in western Mexico, were shot dead in two separate events, just four days before the start of the electoral campaign.

Police, on Monday, learned of the murder of Miguel Ángel Reyes Zavala, a doctor who aspired to obtain the candidacy of the National Regeneration Movement party (Morena) for the mayor of the municipality.

Reyes was shot dead while he was boarding his vehicle in the Rancho la Huerta subdivision, located in the center of the Maravatío municipality, military and police sources indicated.

The shooting was reportedly carried out by two hitmen who got out of a white vehicle, approached the politician, and shot him at point-blank range, and then fled in the same car, according to witnesses interviewed by police investigators.

Hours later, the body of Armando Pérez Luna, aspiring to be the standard bearer of the opposition National Action Party (PAN) for the same position, was found inside a car on a street in the Infonavit neighborhood of Maravatío with “wounds caused by shot of a firearm,” the prosecutor's office said in a brief statement this Tuesday.

The PAN described the incidents as “cowardly murders,” saying that Pérez “warned months ago about the need to install a security table” in the face of violence in that region.

With these most recent killings, there have been at least 26 attacks on candidates and politicians in the last four months, which assumes that the general elections in June will be the most violent in the recent history of the Latin American country.

The State Prosecutor's Office reported that it opened two investigations into the murders.

The national president of the PAN, Marko Cortés, demanded this Tuesday that the authorities take urgent security measures for the electoral process on Friday, expressing disbelief over what was happening.

“It is not possible that candidates from different parties are being murdered, no one is protecting them, there are no risk maps, there are no protocols or security mechanisms and the indifference of those who govern today continues,” Cortés said in a statement.

Michoacán is one of the six most violent states in the country, the scene of the fight between several cartels and criminal groups for control of the territory.