Mexico City, March 30 (teleSUR-RHC) Mexican officials condemned the killing of local city councilman Feliciano Garcia Fierros, who was gunned down on Saturday in Tlaquepaque, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Jalisco.
“We will request immediate assistance from the state Attorney General Luis Carlos Najera along with the Federal and Municipal governments to obtain the facts and motivation behind the case and arrest those responsible,” a statement read.
Feliciano Garcia Fierros was killed as he left a meeting with bus operators around noon Saturday in the San Martin de las Flores district of Tlaquepaque. Leading up to Mexico’s regional elections next June, local political officials face increasing risks of politically motivated assassinations by criminal organizations in order to influence the outcome of regional elections.
During regional elections in 2013, at least 20 candidates were killed or kidnapped to influence the elections. However, earlier this month Jalisco electoral authorities said insecurity had not been a deterrent to register candidates for the forthcoming regional elections.
Jalisco state authorities reported earlier this month that the number homicides per day increased in the first two months of 2015, compared with the same period of 2014, reaching 2.6 murders per day. Fierros belonged to the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has seen a sharp decline in public support among voters with less than two months for the beginning of Mexico’s federal and municipal elections.
A voter intention survey carried out by Buendia y Lared on February indicated that six out of 10 voters would prefer to see the ruling PRI party without a majority in the lower chamber of congress as a result of the legislative elections.
Similarly, a poll conduct by Mexican newspaper Reforma found that Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level of 39 percent since he took office in December 2012. The survey found that the voter disapproval largely stemmed from public security concerns and widespread political corruption.
