MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican officials have condemned the assassination of a prospective mayoral candidate in a small town in the southern state of Oaxaca.
Ivonne Gallegos Carreño was planning to run for mayor in the small town of Ocotlán de Morelos, Oaxaca, before she was shot down in her car on Saturday.
Analysts said on Monday that 18 pre-candidates had been killed so far in the run-up to the midterm elections in June. They died before they launched formal campaigns.
The consultancy firm Etellekt said in a report that killings came mainly in violence-stricken countries such as Veracruz, on the Gulf Coast and Guerrero, on the Pacific Ocean. But isolated killings have occurred in half a dozen other states.
While motives vary in resolved cases, politicians in Mexico are threatened by drug cartels, political rivals and corrupt police.
Mexico’s National Women’s Institute said in a statement that “violence against women cannot be tolerated or tolerated in a democratic system.”