Mayoral hopeful’s murder in Mexico captured on camera — the 23rd candidate killed before the elections

Mexico campaign season came to a bloody end when a gunman shot dead a mayoral hopeful at a rally on Wednesday, days before the country elected its first female president.

His murder brings to at least 23 the number of candidates murdered during a particularly violent electoral process in the Latin American country, according to an official count.

Alfredo Cabrera, a mayoral candidate for an opposition coalition, was shot dead in the southern state of Guerrero, causing chaos and panic among people taking part in the rally.

Cabrera’s murder was caught on camera, with the footage showing him smiling and flanked by fans before being shot multiple times.

The state prosecutor’s office said that “the alleged attacker was killed at the scene.” Three people were also injured and two others detained, according to witnesses.

Cabrera belonged to the same opposition coalition as presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez, who expressed outrage over his assassination.

“He was a generous and good man,” she wrote on social media.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), part of the opposition coalition, accused the government of “not having made the slightest effort to guarantee the safety of the candidates”.

Cabrera’s death came just one day after a mayoral candidate in the central Mexican state of Morelos was murderedwhile another was wounded by gunfire in western Jalisco state.

Last week, nine people were killed in two attacks against mayoral candidates in the southern state of Chiapas. Both candidates survived.

Earlier this month, six people, including a minor candidate and mayor Lucero Lopez, were killed in an ambush after a campaign rally in the municipality of La Concordia, neighboring Villa Corzo.

A mayoral candidate was shot dead last month as soon as she started the campaign.

Around 27,000 soldiers and members of the National Guard will be deployed to reinforce security on election day.

New leader will face crisis of cartel violence

Facing the cartel violence that has convulsed Mexico and turned it into one of the most dangerous countries in the world will be among the main challenges the next leader will face, along with managing migration and delicate relations with the neighboring United States.

More than 450,000 people have been murdered and tens of thousands have disappeared since the government sent the army to combat drug trafficking in 2006.

Barring a major surprise, it appears almost certain that a woman will be elected leader of the world’s most populous Spanish-speaking country when millions of Mexicans vote on Sunday.

Leader Claudia Sheinbaum, of the ruling Morena party, ended her campaign with a rally in the capital’s main public square.

“We’re going to make history,” Sheinbaum told the excited crowd.

“I tell young women, all women in Mexico – colleagues, friends, sisters, daughters, mothers and grandmothers – that they are not alone,” said the 61-year-old.

Sheinbaum has promised to continue social programs and left-wing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s strategy of fighting crime at its roots – a controversial policy he calls “hugs, not bullets.”

At his closing rally in the northern city of Monterrey, Galvez promised a tougher approach to cartel-related violence.

“We will have the most courageous president, a president who stands up to crime,” she said.

Gálvez accused López Obrador of implementing “a security strategy where hugs are for criminals and bullets for citizens.”

Woman poised to be the next president

Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City and a scientist by training, enjoys a sizable lead in the polls, with 53% voter support, according to polling firm Oraculus.

Galvez, a center-right senator and businesswoman with indigenous roots, is in second place, with 36 percent.

The only candidate – centrist Jorge Alvarez Maynez – has 11 percent.

Thousands of Sheinbaum’s supporters gathered Wednesday to hear her speak, many of them wearing purple — the color of the ruling party.

“People have woken up. We no longer want the old governments to rob us because the poor come first,” said Soledad Hernandez, a 23-year-old housewife from the southern state of Oaxaca.

Sheinbaum owes much of his popularity to Lopez Obrador, widely known as AMLO — a close ally who has an approval rating of more than 60 percent but can only serve one term.

“The rural people had nothing and now they are better off with AMLO,” said Maria Isabel Zacarias, 55, a street food vendor who came from the south to hear Sheinbaum speak.

Bertha Diaz, a 71-year-old Gálvez supporter, said she fears that if Sheinbaum wins, “it will be more of the same as López Obrador, who sank Mexico and wants to turn it into another Venezuela.”

Almost 100 million people are registered to vote for president, members of Congress, several state governors and local authorities, in the biggest elections ever in a country of 129 million inhabitants.

Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said on Tuesday – before Cabrera’s murder – that 22 people running for local public office had been killed since September.

Some non-governmental organizations reported an even higher number, including Data Civica, which counted at least 30 candidate murders.