Bertha Gisela Gaytán, a political candidate for Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, was murdered on the kick-off day of her mayoral campaign in a vicious attack just outside the city of Celaya. This tragedy adds to a growing death toll linked to what specialists have warned could be Mexico’s most violent election period in the nation’s history.
Video that circulated on social media captured the deadly incident, which occurred while Ms Gaytán and a group of Morena activists and supporters were on a campaign walkabout in the city streets. Adrián Guerrero, another Morena candidate seeking a City Council seat, was reportedly among those also killed in the assault.
This wave of brutality comes during the lead-up to the June 2nd vote, with the number of mayoral candidates murdered since September 2023 now totalling at least 22. The scale of the upcoming election, with a record-breaking number of posts up for grabs at the federal, state and local levels — including the successor to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — partially explains the escalated bloodshed.
Celaya is located within Guanajuato, a state notorious for an alarmingly high homicide rate. Last year, the lives of sixty police officers were claimed by the ongoing turf and enterprise battles between various criminal organisations.
Prior to her untimely death, Ms Gaytán held a press conference detailing her strategy for combating corruption and enhancing the security in Celaya. As pointed out by research group Data Cívica, local-level politics are the most dangerous, with approximately 80% of politically-motivated attacks and homicides taking place at the municipal level.
“Municipal governments have control over local budgets and the police, which makes them particularly attractive targets for organised crime,” Data Cívica’s Itxaro Arteta explained. The findings of an analysis from the 2021 elections suggest that candidates contesting against the status quo tend to be targeted more frequently, which was observed in 25 of the 32 documented political killings.
Ms Arteta suggests that existing political parties in power may have clandestine ties with organised crime, although certainty about such relationships remains elusive. Whenever there’s a transition of power, it often coincides with heightened violent incidents.
The safeguarding of political nominees is complex for several reasons – the inadequacies of local law enforcement and a scant minority of homicides of this kind are proceeded by warnings. The rate of violence is a factor in the difficulty political parties have recruiting local nominees. Additionally, organised crime syndicates frequently try to foist their preferred choice of candidates.
In the Michoacán state, where, in February, two candidates representing the same municipality were killed on the same day, at least 34 more candidates have opted out of running.
Recent studies by Data Cívica established a link between assaults on public employees and a decline in voter turnout.
Ms Arteta concludes by suggesting that such circumstances, in unambiguous terms, weaken democracy. The uncertainty it generates among voters about their candidates, specifically whether they can legitimately govern without yielding to pressures from organised crime, is detrimental.