Yet another political murder in Mexico lashed by the violence committed before, during and after the elections which consecrated Claudia Sheinbaum as the first female president of the country. The latest victim is Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa, mayor of Cotija, in the state of Michoacán. She was hit by at least 19 bullets fired by a group of hitmen, and the rush to the regional hospital was of no avail, where she died shortly after the attack.
Sanchez's name had already resonated in the Mexican news on September 23, 2023, when the media announced his kidnapping by a commando. On that occasion she was lucky enough to be released after three days. This time, the tragic epilogue of an attack which, according to information released by local sources, was carried out by individuals who fired assault rifles from a moving van before fleeing. The attack took place in the main square of the municipality it presided over, Cotija, the city of origin of the internationally award-winning cheese of the same name.
«The government of the State of Michoacán condemns the assassination of the president of the municipal council of Cotija, Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa. We have launched a coordinated security operation with federal agencies to identify those responsible,” it said in a statement. Media reports that another person, presumably one of the bodyguards, was also injured.
Member of the National Action Party, Sanchez was the first woman to assume the municipal presidency, after her success in the June 2021 elections with 3,486 votes, overtaking her main opponent from the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), who had obtained 1,833 suffrages. That of the mayor of Cotija is only the latest of the murders perpetrated during the elections in recent days in Mexico.
Only a few hours earlier, Yonis Atenógenes Baños Bustos, candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party for the municipal presidency of Santo Domingo Armenta, had been assassinated in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Claudia Sheinbaum, who emerged victorious from the presidential elections, will have to take up the challenge of narco-violence. But her victory is questioned by the opposition: Xóchitl Gálvez, candidate for president of the alliance made up of PAN, PRI and PRD, while acknowledging defeat in Sunday's elections, announced that she will challenge the results, ensuring that it was of “an unequal competition against the entire state apparatus” with the presence of “organized crime” including assassinations of candidates and threats. “The results surprise us,” Gálvez wrote on social networks, “and that's why we need to analyze what happened.”
«We all know — continued the candidate — that we found ourselves faced with an unequal competition against the entire state apparatus committed to favoring its candidate. We all realized how present organized crime was, which threatened and killed dozens of aspirants.” “This doesn't end here – she added – we will present the evidence that proves it and we will do it because we cannot allow another election like this.”