Mexico City, January 3 (RHC)-- Just an hour and a half after being officially sworn in on Tuesday, the new mayor of Tlaxiaco, in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca, has been shot dead on the street.

Alejandro Aparicio Santiago, a former local representative and member of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) led by center-left President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was walking with representative Perfecto Hernandez and Cleotilde Santos when at least two people started shooting at them at noon.  Five people were injured, including the politicians and three other people as yet unidentified.  Aparicio Santiago later died in hospital.

The governor of Oaxaca, Alejandro Murat, condemned the attack and said state prosecutors reported that “the possible author of the homicide” has been arrested.  Local news sites report that bystanders caught one of the shooters and were about to lynch the attacker before police stopped them.

On Sunday, another Morena politician, elected councilwoman Maria Ascension Cruz Torres, was killed by a gunman in Mazatepec, in the state of Morelos. She was about to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Before the murder of Aparicio, the consulting firm Etellekt, specializing in risks, political violence and public policies, reported that at least six authorities elected in the July 1st general elections were killed before taking office. Four of them belonged to Morena, one to the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and one to the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico (PVEM).

According to the firm, 175 politicians were murdered between September 2017 and August 2018 in Mexico.  Of the total 850 attacks registered, 81 percent were against opposition party members.  Etellekt registered a record number of attacks during the past electoral process, with 48 candidates and pre-candidates murdered.   The Mexican states with the highest rates of poverty had also the highest violence levels.