MEXICO CITY ( AP ) — Mexico held the last day of campaigning Wednesday before , Sunday’s nationwide election, but the closing rallies were darkened by attacks on candidates and the country’s persistently high homicide rate.
Opposition candidate , Xóchitl Gálvez , started her past battle demonstrations earlier Wednesday on the fringes of Mexico City, and she focused her indignation on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “hugs no guns” policy of never confronting the drug cartel.
Gálvez is facing the prospect of López Obrador’s Morena group,  , past Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum. Sheinbaum, who leads in the contest, has promised to continue all of López Obrador’s laws.
” Are we going to continue with kisses, or are we going to apply the rules to scammers”? Gálvez asked a cheering audience. ” Mexico wants serenity, wants tranquility”.
López Obrador has withdrawn funding for the police force and instead directed it to the quasi-military National Guard, which reviewers claim lacks the analytical and specialized skills required to combat drug gangs. Galvez promised to give police forces back the money and pay them at least$ 1,200 per month in wages.
Gálvez likewise pledged to resolve a region that has been highly polarized by the cheerful president’s speech, saying “enough section, enough anger … we are all Mexicans”.
Sheinbaum held her last protest after Wednesday in Mexico City’s large, colonial- era main square. To a huge audience, she delivered a stark nationalist conversation.
” Mexico is respected in the world, it is a guide place”, Sheinbaum said, claiming that López Obrador’s government “has returned to us the pleasure of being Mexicans”.
” Mexico has changed, and for the better”, she said.
Sheinbaum vowed to carry on López Obrador’s policy of providing apprenticeships to discourage young people from joining drug cartels in relation to the crime problem.
” We will enhance the approach of peace and security, and the advancement that has been made”, she said. ” This is not an iron palm” coverage, Sheinbaum said. ” This is justice”.
López Obrador has raised the nation’s minimum income and expanded state gain programs, but he has not been able to significantly lower the nation’s generally high homicide rate, which is now at more than 30 000 deaths annually nationwide. The campaigns have also been hampered by that gang-fueled violence.
A violent southern state of Guerrero’s mayor candidate was fatally shot in the town of Coyuca de Benitez on Wednesday night. Gov. Alfredo Cabrera was the candidate’s name, but Evelyn Salgado did not provide further information about his death. At his final campaign event, local media reported that he was shot in the head.
A mayoral candidate in the state of Jalisco was shot numerous times by intruders in his campaign offices late on Tuesday. Two members of Gilberto Palomar’s campaign staff were also wounded, and all three were hospitalized in serious condition, according to Jalisco state security coordinator Sánchez Beruben.
Mexicans will vote Sunday in an election weighing gender, democracy and populism, as they chart the country’s path forward in voting shadowed by cartel violence. With two women leading the contest, Mexico will likely elect its first female president. More than 20, 000 congressional and local positions are up for grabs, according to the National Electoral Institute.
On Tuesday, gunmen killed an alternate mayoral candidate in Morelos state, south of Mexico City, according to state prosecutors.
Ricardo Arizmendi was shot five times in the head by a motorcycle-trained attackers in the Morelos city of Cuautla, according to local media reports. If the winner of a race is incapacitated or resigns, alternate candidates take office.
About 27 candidates, mostly running for mayor or town councils, have been killed so far this year. While that is not much higher than in some past elections, what is unprecedented is the mass shootings: candidates used to be killed in targeted attacks, but now criminals have taken to , spraying whole campaign events with gunfire.
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