In yet another shockingviolent incident, the mayor of the small Jalisco municipality of Jilotlán de los Dolores was shot to death last week as he drove alone in his Toyota Prius on the state border with narco-plagued Michoacan.
Carlos Andrade Magaña, who had taken a leave of absence to run for reelection under the banner of the Citizens Movement (CM), was on his way to the Michoacan pueblo of Tepalcatepec when he was attacked. There were no witnesses to the incident and robbery was clearly not the motive.
Investigators say Andrade Magaña had never filed a complaint with state authorities suggesting his life was in danger. His son Damian told reporters that his father was a businessman who eschewed private security because he believed it to be an unnecessary expense. Implications in some reports that the mayor was involved in nefarious activities are completely off the mark, his son said, stressing that his father frequently visited adjacent Michoacan.
CM leaders in the state immediately demanded that Governor Aristoteles Sandoval leave no stone unturned in finding out the perpetrators of the crime.
Enrique Alfaro, the CM candidate for governor, said violence in the state has reached such alarming levels that it was time for federal authorities to relieve the state police force of their duties. “No one wants to see soldiers on the streets but there is little alternative,” he said.
Miguel Castro, candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Alfaro’s main rival in the race, offered his condolences to the victim’s family but urged his opponents not to politicize the murder.
According to Spanish-language daily Milenio, Andrade Magaña had written a letter to Mexico’s Foreign Ministry asking for a brief audience with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a planned visit in June of last year. “The ‘leadership she shows to the world should be a reference to everyone,” he wrote. His request was declined.
Almost 150 public officials have been killed during the past five years of Governor Sandoval’s administration. Among the most prominent were state Tourism Secretary José de Jesús Gallegos, who was gunned down nine days into the administration, and federal legislator Gabriel Gómez Michel, who was kidnapped and murdered in September 2014.