Mexican Interior Minister: Violence of organized crime is the greatest risk of elections

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The head of Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior, Olga Sanchez Cordero, said on Thursday that the greatest risk facing the current electoral process would end on June 6 violence of organized crime.

And she assured that in most of the country, conditions of peace and tranquility prevail so that the electoral campaigns can conclude smoothly and the electoral day of June 6 can normally occur.

“From this Thursday to Election Day, the greatest risk to governance and to the electoral process that we have detected from the Mexican Government is, unfortunately, the activity of organized crime groups,” said the official in a virtual meeting with governors and federal officials.

She pointed out that such behaviors “can affect and harm, even, as we have been seeing, to the extreme of depriving candidates of their lives, without distinction of political party”.

She stated that this risk is present in many country regions and mainly affects candidates for municipal positions.

“Organized crime wants territory, and the territory is precisely at the municipal level, hence the vulnerability in some cases of candidates for popular election in the municipalities, whether as municipal presidents, councilors or trustees,” she said.

Political-electoral violence has intensified in the final stretch of the campaign for the mid-term elections, the largest in the country’s history, with the murder of a candidate and the kidnapping and attack against two other candidates between Tuesday and Wednesday.

According to the consulting firm Etellekt, at least 88 politicians have been murdered during the current electoral process, which began last September, 34 of which were candidates or aspirants.

At the meeting, Sanchez Cordero informed that, according to data provided by the National Electoral Institute (INE), “there are less than 200 polling stations (0.12%) that are at risk of not being installed”, out of the 166,000 that will operate throughout the national territory.

“In almost all municipalities, federal and local electoral districts, and in the 32 federal entities, conditions of peace, tranquility, and confidence prevail so that the campaigns conclude without major setbacks and so that the election day occurs with democratic normality,” he concluded.

Mexico will have the largest elections in its history on June 6, when almost 93.5 million people are called to vote for 500 federal deputies, 15 of 32 state governors, 30 local congresses, and 1,900 city councils.