In a brutal attack that has shocked the nation, Bertha Gisela Gaytán Gutiérrez, a mayoral candidate in the city of Celaya, Guanajuato, was gunned down on the street just hours after launching her campaign and requesting protection on Monday. Adrián Guerrero, a city council candidate who was wounded in the same attack, succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday, authorities confirmed.
The killings are the latest in a string of violence targeting politicians in the lead-up to Mexico's June 2 elections. At least 15 candidates have been killed since the start of 2024, prompting expressions of regret from government officials that have become all too routine.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose Morena party Gaytán represented, said the killing of his own party's candidates "hurts a lot," but he did not announce any increase in security for politicians. "These events are very regrettable, because these are people are fighting to defend democracy, they're out on the street, face to face," López Obrador said at his daily news briefing.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the killing, but Mexico's drug cartels have often focused assassination attempts on mayors and mayoral candidates in a bid to control local police or extort money from municipal governments. Guanajuato state, with a population just over 6 million, has been wracked for years by violent turf battles between the Jalisco drug cartel and the homegrown Santa Rosa de Lima gang.
In a video posted on social media, Gaytán can be seen walking down a street, shouting "Morena!" when gunshots ring out and she crumples to the pavement. The footage then shows people running and falling down. Guerrero was part of a small group that was walking with Gaytán.
"The people are with us, they watch out for us, but of course we are going to have security provisions," Gaytán had said shortly before she was killed, noting a request had been made through her Morena party. "Let's see if we get some kind of answer today."
The leadership of López Obrador's Morena party issued a statement, calling the killings "cowardly," and calling for an investigation. Federal Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said Tuesday the government has taken on the commitment to respond to protection requests within 72 hours, noting that over 100 candidates nationwide have asked for protection.
Celaya, with a population of 500,000, is arguably the most dangerous place, per capita, to be a police officer in North America. At least 34 police officers have been killed in the city in the last three years. In 2023, more police were shot to death in Guanajuato state — about 60 — than in all of the United States.
The violence against politicians is not limited to Guanajuato. Over the weekend, the mayor of Churumuco, a town in the neighboring state of Michoacan, was shot to death at a taco restaurant in the state capital, Morelia. In late February, two mayoral hopefuls in another town in Michoacan were shot to death within hours of each other.
