Candidates for mayor under attack in Guerrero and Tamaulipas

May 26, 2021

Bullet holes in the windshield of a car in which a candidate for mayor of Acapulco was traveling.

Two mayoral candidates have been the target of armed attacks in the space of 12 hours, but with no injuries reported.

The Force for Mexico candidate for Acapulco, José Alberto Alonso Gutiérrez, was attacked in the Guerrero city Wednesday morning while en route to a campaign event, while farther north Jesús Galván, the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) candidate for San Fernando, Tampaulipas, was the target of a gunman who opened fire Tuesday evening on vehicles in his entourage.

In Acapulco, Gutiérrez’s driver said the convoy in which they were traveling was intercepted and fired on from a motorcycle with two people on it. The vehicle transporting the candidate was hit by at least nine bullets.

Force for Mexico spokesman Fernando Manuel Haces Barba said the candidate went into “shock and panic. Thank God he’s fine, he’s stable and they’ve put him on a serum with medicine to calm him down,” he said, adding that the party will demand municipal authorities enact security measures to protect candidates.

Tamaulipas candidate Galván said that although the considered the shooting to be a direct threat, he would continue with the campaign until the June 6 election.

The president of the PRI’s national executive committee, Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas, condemned the intimidation suffered by Galván. “Federal and security authorities have to take seriously this crisis that threatens democracy; against citizens and against those who seek to represent them with dignity through a vote, regardless of the party to which they belong,” read a message on Twitter.

The incidents follow two other attacks on Tuesday in Guanajuato and Michoacán. In the former, Alma Barragán, candidate for mayor of Moroleón, was killed while campaigning while Omar Plancarte Hernández was kidnapped in Jiménez.