Mexico’s campaign season came to a bloody end on Wednesday as a gunman shot dead an aspiring mayor at a rally, days before the country is expected to elect its first female president.
The killing brings the number of candidates who have been murdered to 23 during the electoral process in the Latin American nation, an official count showed.
Alfredo Cabrera, a mayoral candidate for an opposition coalition, was gunned down in the southern state of Guerrero, causing chaos and panic among people attending the rally.
Photo: AFP
Cabrera’s murder was captured on camera, with the footage showing him smiling and flanked by fans before he was shot several times.
The state prosecutors’ office said that “the alleged assailant was killed at the scene.”
Three people were injured and two others were detained, witnesses said.
Cabrera belonged to the same opposition coalition as presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez.
“He was a generous and good man,” she wrote on X.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, part of the opposition coalition, accused the government of having “not made even the slightest effort to guarantee the safety of the candidates.”
About 27,000 soldiers and National Guard members are to be deployed to reinforce security on election day.
Tackling cartel violence will be among the major challenges facing the next leader. More than 450,000 people have been murdered and tens of thousands have gone missing since the government deployed the army to fight drug trafficking in 2006.
Barring a major upset, a woman appears almost certain to be elected leader on Sunday.
Frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum, from the ruling Morena party, ended her campaign with a rally in the capital.
“We’re going to make history,” Sheinbaum told the crowd.
Sheinbaum has pledged to continue Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s social programs and strategy of tackling crime at its roots — a policy that he calls “hugs not bullets.”
At her closing rally in Monterrey, Galvez promised a tougher approach to cartel-related violence.
“You will have the bravest president, a president who does confront crime,” she said.
Galvez accused Lopez Obrador of implementing “a security strategy where hugs have been for criminals and bullets for citizens.”
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS