MEXICO CITY, Mexico: A local politician and his wife have been murdered in Mexico’s Pacific coastal resort of Acapulco, his party said Friday, the latest victims of a wave of election violence.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said Anibal Zuniga ran for councilor in the municipality of Coyuca de Benitez in the state of Guerrero in the June 2 election.
The local prosecutor’s office said it had opened an investigation into the murder.
According to Mexican media, the dismembered bodies of the pair were found in bags in an abandoned vehicle.
The husband and wife were “cowardly murdered”, said the PRI branch in Guerrero, a violence-hit southern state rife with organized crime.
Mexican politicians are often victims of bloodshed linked to corruption and drug trafficking, especially those running for local office.
Lucero Lopez Maza, a 28-year-old aspiring mayor of a town in the southern state of Chiapas, was shot dead Thursday night, along with five other people, including a minor, the local prosecutor’s office said.
As of May 1, 26 candidates had been killed since the election process began on September 23, according to a tally by the civic organization Data Civica.
