Mayor murdered in Mexico day after the election of Claudia Sheinbaum

The mayor of a town in western Mexico was assassinated this Monday, June 3, barely 24 hours after the triumphant election of the country’s first woman, Claudia Sheinbaum, the regional government said.

The government of the state of Michoacan condemned “the homicide of the municipal president (editor’s note: mayor) of Cotija, Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa”, indicated the regional Ministry of the Interior.

“A security system was deployed to try to capture those responsible,” it was added.

The victim had already been the victim of a kidnapping for three days last September near Guadalajara. She was elected mayor in the 2021 elections under the label of the National Action Party (PAN, liberal-conservative right).

The mayor was attacked in the street by armed civilians in a van, according to local media.

The kidnappers could belong to the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), one of the two most violent in the country, police and local media sources indicated. They allegedly threatened the mayor because they opposed the cartel taking control of her municipal police force.