The images are chilling. The candidate approaches the stage where he will give his end-of-campaign rally. In the video, taken by a supporter, he is seen from behind, his red shirt, a flower necklace around his neck. Suddenly, a gun appears in the frame and shoots him twice in the head. The candidate collapses and screams are heard. Seconds later, another 10 or 12 gunshots are heard, these now further away: they are the victim’s bodyguards, who shoot down the alleged aggressor. Alfredo Cabrera, candidate for mayor in Guerrero, was murdered four days before the election, adding to the list of attacks during the electoral period in Mexico, which number in the hundreds. He was 37 years old.
All this happened on Wednesday afternoon in Coyuca de Benítez, on the coast of Guerrero, near Acapulco. Cabrera, candidate of the PRI-PAN-PRD opposition coalition, took a mass bath before the reflection period began, valid from this Thursday until voting day, Sunday. In videos taken minutes before the attack, he is seen walking smiling, accompanied by his family. Cabrera had protection from the National Guard. Local media have reported that the candidate had suffered an attack months ago, in which he had been wounded by a gunshot.
The Guerrero Prosecutor’s Office reported the attack last night, although it did not give any details that were not previously known. The agency assumed that the aggressor is indeed the young man that the bodyguards shot down just after the shots were fired. The Prosecutor’s Office has not said if there are more detainees. It seems difficult for such an attack to be the work of a single man. The candidate had two security rings, one made up of national guards, perimeter, and another of plainclothes escorts, meters away from him. Approaching Cabrera and attempting his life, in an atmosphere of tension, practically meant death. This Thursday, the agency announced the seizure of weapons, drugs and a vehicle in a search in the municipality.
The governor of the State, Evelyn Salgado, from Morena, condemned the attack on social networks. In a message posted on her Facebook account, she wrote: “I strongly condemn the unfortunate events in which candidate Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos lost his life. To clarify this cowardly crime and guarantee no impunity, I have asked the Prosecutor’s Office to carry out the pertinent investigations to apply the full weight of the law to him or those responsible for this crime. To the family, friends and supporters, I respectfully express my sincere condolences.”
It is naive to think of the Coyuca attack as something unimaginable. Not only because of the national atmosphere and the number of attacks recorded during the campaign, more than 500 since September, according to the consulting firm Integralia. Also due to the tension of the municipality itself. Just a week and a half ago, authorities found the dismembered body of a candidate for mayor, from the same coalition, on an avenue in the nearby Port of Acapulco. It was May 16. The State Prosecutor’s Office lifted the torn bodies of Aníbal Zúñiga and his wife, abandoned in the bed of a pick-up truck.
Last October, Coyuca had also been in the news for the ambush and massacre of 13 local police officers, including the head of the corporation, not far from the municipal seat. The hitmen then ambushed the police on the highway that connects Acapulco and Zihuatanejo, the two large tourist cities on the central and northern coast of Guerrero. Apparently, the criminal convoy intercepted the agents near the town of El Papayo, about 20 minutes from the center of Coyuca. There were no arrests for that.
Like so many other municipalities in Guerrero, Coyuca de Benítez and the Costa Grande region in general suffer the consequences of caciquil fights between power groups with great firepower, as was seen in October. It is impossible to talk about local crime without mentioning the Los Granados group, identified by the Prosecutor’s Office itself as one of the most important criminal organizations on the northern coastal strip of Guerrero. It will depend on their investigations to clarify the case and to know whether or not this group has been involved.
Coyuca and Acapulco hold elections on Sunday while recovering from the passage of Hurricane Otis, precisely one day after the police massacre in October. The local government, of Morena, aspires to re-election in a municipality with a dozen candidates. Cabrera had positioned himself as one of the leading candidates, as he had indicated in several publications on social networks. The president of the PRI in Guerrero, Alejandro Bravo, has indicated that between today and tomorrow, the coalition will announce a replacement. “We are still dismayed, what is happening in the State is regrettable,” Bravo said in a radio interview this Thursday, “until now we have no candidate, because there is no one who says ‘I’ll take him in.'”
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