The Jalisco state legislature lost its only congressman from the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) when Saul Galindo was murdered at his ranch in Tomatlan on the morning of Thursday, December 28.
Galindo was elected to Jalisco’s state legislature in 2015. He had previously served as a Tomatlan councilman from 2004-2006 and the town’s mayor from 2013-2015. Clearly interested in maintaining a political presence in his home municipality, he had also registered as a candidate for the town’s 2018 mayoral election.
During a press conference following the incident, Tomatlan’s current mayor, the PRD member Jorge Luis Trello Garcia, offered no speculation as to a possible motive for the crime.
The PRD, a relatively weak political presence in Jalisco, is one of the country’s most left-leaning parties. It originally formed from a faction which in 1986 split from the PRI, still Mexico’s dominant political force. PRD party head Victor Hugo Prado has demanded a full, thorough investigation into the murder.
“We’re not interested in speculation. What we want is an investigation,” said Hugo, whose comments were directed especially at Governor Aristoteles Sandoval.
Sandoval informed the public via Twitter that acting Attorney General Raul Sanchez Jimenez has been sent to the area, where he is to “formally head up inquiries in order to shed light on the congressman’s murder.”
Tomatlan, located just south of Puerto Vallarta, has earned a certain degree of notoriety over the past few decades as a hotbed of criminal activity.
Galindo’s murder is just the latest in a rash of executions suffered by PRD membership over the years in multiple states. According to party officials, 22 PRD mayors around the country have been murdered in the last six years.