Candidates stuck in crossfire as rival gangs clash over turf
TAXCO, Mexico — Mario Figueroa sat in his armored SUV, surrounded by bodyguards clutching semi- automatic rifles. The bulletproof vest was stashed behind the back seat.
These days, Figueroa rarely travels without his security team. As a candidate for mayor of this Spanish colonial city — once popular with American tourists, now lashed by drug violence — the 53-year-old businessman has already taken a bullet in the chest.
“We have to be ready for whatever happens,” he said. “We are in the hands of God.”
Mexico is in the final days of one of its most violent electoral campaigns in modern times. Eighty-nine politicians have been killed since September, according to the security consulting firm Etellekt. Scores more have been wounded or threatened. The campaign has become a stark illustration of crime organizations’ quest to expand their control of Mexico’s territory, a rising threat to this young democracy.
Sunday’s midterm elections will determine the makeup of the lower house of Mexico’s Congress and most state legislatures, as well as nearly half the 31 governorships. But the violence has focused largely on thousands of races for mayor and other local government posts.
“This is a struggle for municipal power,” said Notre Dame political scientist Guillermo Trejo, who studies political violence in Latin America. Crime groups “have discovered that gaining control over municipal governments and local economies and populations and territories is crucial if they want to survive in the very fierce struggles for drug-trafficking routes.”
The fight for influence is complex. There are politicians who resist crime groups and politicians who are suspected of welcoming the gangs’ cash or muscle. In some towns, a dominant trafficking organization has imposed its favorite candidate. In others, rival armed groups back opposing parties.
Then there’s Taxco, a picturesque silver-mining city 100 miles south of Mexico City. Three of the nine candidates for municipal president are protected by bodyguards. Another mayoral hopeful dropped out of the race after being kidnapped and beaten. Local branches of two major cartels — the Familia Michoacana and Jalisco New Generation — are playing a murky role in the election.
“We’ve reached an extreme,” said Figueroa, a political novice who’s running on the ticket of a small party, Fuerza por Mexico. He confessed to being nervous. “How could I not be?” he asked. “I’m not Superman. But someone needs to bring order to Taxco.”
Indeed, this once-peaceful city has become a symbol of the social and economic toll of crime groups’ expanding presence in Mexico. Taxco remains an architectural jewel, with its 18th-century Baroque cathedral and hundreds of whitewashed, red-tile-roofed homes spilling down Atatzin Mountain. Tourists still stroll its cobblestone alleys lined with silver jewelry shops; they are rarely harmed. But homicides more than tripled from 2007- 2019, reaching 77, extortion is widespread and journalists self-censor for fear of being killed.
“Taxco used to be known as one of the most tranquil places in the world,” said Roberto Hernández Mojica, a local leader of a miners union. “Now, at 10 p.m., there’s no one outside because of the violence. It’s affected us tremendously.”
The mayoral campaign here got off to a bloody start. Figueroa was getting out of his SUV near his downtown home on the evening of Dec. 21 when a motorcyclist suddenly roared up, his face hidden by a helmet.
There was a crack; the bullet pierced the candidate’s lung. He was rushed to the hospital.
Last month, security forces finally arrested a suspect, the alleged local boss of the Familia Michoacana crime group. Figueroa said he thinks the attack was a political hit. He recalled what the gunman had shouted before opening fire: “You’re not understanding the situation with Parra.” Marcos Parra was the municipal president of Taxco, running for reelection. Figueroa had accused his government of corruption in public works projects.