Mexico elections: Armed men stop presidential party leader on campaign trail

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mario Delgado, leader of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), the party of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was detained Friday for a few minutes by an armed group on a campaign tour on a highway in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

“We are going from Matamoros to Reynosa. A van stopped us with long weapons, we are standing here, you can tell that Rosa Icela (Mexico’s Security Secretary),” Delgado said in a video broadcast live while he was being held.

Delgado was traveling in a van along with Morena Senator Guadalupe Covarrubias and Morena deputies Erasmo González and Adriana Lozano when a van intercepted them with armed men.

In the video broadcast by Delgado, Deputy González, seated in the passenger seat, can be seen talking to the occupants of the other van, to whom he says: “We are from Morena, we cannot leave, we have to move forward”.

Shortly after, the co-driver of the van of the alleged armed men raised his thumb, and the vehicle started allowing the politicians to continue on their way.

“This is how the situation is in Tamaulipas. Evidently, this matter needs to be investigated. It is a van with long weapons, we were detained, they pointed long weapons at the van. We are fine,” said Delgado, who continued broadcasting for a few more minutes.

The Morena leader took the opportunity to say that Tamaulipas, on the border with the United States, is experiencing “a crisis of insecurity, of violence” and blamed the governor, Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN).

He also regretted that the Judicial Power “continues without resolving” the situation of Cabeza de Vaca, investigated by the Attorney General’s Office for organized crime.

“We have just lived a situation that we do not wish to anyone, I hope security is guaranteed”, added Delgado, who asked for help from the National Guard for the rest of his tour.

On June 6, Mexicans are called to the polls to renew the Chamber of Deputies, 15 of 32 governors, 30 local congresses, and thousands of city councils in the largest elections in their history.

The campaign is heavily marked by violence and organized crime, with at least 88 politicians having been killed during the current electoral process that began last September, 34 of whom were candidates or aspirants, according to the Etellekt consultancy.