The weekend murder of two political candidates in Mexico marks the current political cycle as one of the bloodiest in recent decades. Criminal organizations and their political allies appear to be flexing their muscles to eliminate opposition.
Last Friday, Noe Ramos Ferretiz, the mayor of Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas, was walking the streets on the south side of his city trying to build up support for his reelection bid. A man walked up to him and stabbed him several times, leaving him on the ground in a pool of blood. Ramos was a candidate for the National Action Party (PAN), an opposition party to MORENA. The MORENA Party is the party of the current governor, Americo Villarreal, and Mexico’s President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Over the weekend, authorities were able to capture the man believed to have stabbed Ramos. A motive for the killing has not been released. Ramos made headlines in Mexico when he claimed that government officials were refusing to address the spread of the Gulf Cartel into the region and that the cartel had started to extort local farmers with complete impunity.
Also on Friday, authorities in the state of Oaxaca found the body of Alberto Antonio Garcia, a mayoral candidate for the town of San Jose Independencia. Unknown gunmen kidnapped both Garcia and his wife, Agar Cancino Gomez, who is the current mayor, earlier in the week. The gunmen apparently tortured both victims but did not kill the woman, information from the Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office revealed. Both victims hailed from the MORENA party.
According to the NGO Laboratorio Electoral, since the start of the electoral cycle on June 4, 2023, to April 19, 2024, there have been 174 cases of electoral violence, including 57 murders (30 candidates), 11 kidnappings, 29 attempted killings, and 77 threats. The stats point to the current election cycle being one of the bloodiest in recent history despite claims made by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador that political violence has decreased or stopped.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.