After newly elected mayor is beheaded in Mexico, others ask federal authorities for protection

Four mayors in Mexico have asked federal authorities for protection after a colleague was beheaded last week in the southern state of Guerrero, officials said Tuesday.

Mayor Alejandro Arcos had been sworn into office less than a week before he was murdered.

Federal Public Safety Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch said four mayors requested protection on Monday, a day after Arcos’ remains were found. The requests came from Guerrero and another violence-plagued state, Guanajuato.

The situation in Guanajuato is so bad that ahead of the country’s June elections, at least four mayoral candidates were killed.

Garcia Harfuch did not say why the mayors asked for protection. He also didn’t give much detail on the investigations into Arcos’ killing, saying only that the mayor had left his staff behind to attend a private meeting just before his death.

Arcos had told local media he needed more protection, but Garcia Harfuch said no formal request had been received. State and federal governments can offer mayors bulletproof vehicles, additional bodyguards and emergency alert systems.

Arcos’ murder came days after the killing of another city official, Francisco Tapia, according to Institutional Revolutionary Party president Alejandro Moreno.

“They had been in office for less than a week. Young and honest officials who sought progress for their community,” Moreno said on X.

The state capital, Chilpancingo, is dominated by two warring drug gangs, the Ardillos and the Tlacos. One staged a demonstration of hundreds of people, hijacked a government armored car, blocked a major highway and took police hostage in 2023 to win the release of arrested suspects.

Gangs and drug cartels in Mexico frequently target mayors and other local officials to press demands for extortion payments, government contracts and the appointment of henchmen to municipal police forces.

At least 24 politicians were murdered during a particularly violent electoral process leading up to the June election that the key ruling party figure won by a landslide, according to official figures.

In June, at least three politicians in Guerrero were killed. Acacio Flores, who represents Malinaltepec, was killed just days after the killing of Salvador Villalba Flores, another mayor from Guerrero state elected in June 2 polls. Earlier in the month, a local councilwoman was gunned down as she was leaving her home in Guerrero.

Her murder came a few days after the mayor of a town in western Mexico and her bodyguard were killed outside of a gym, just hours after Claudia Sheinbaum won the presidency.

Mexico president rules out new “war on drugs”

Sheinbaum on Tuesday ruled out launching a new war against drug cartels, as she presented a national security plan aimed at reducing raging criminal violence.

Sheinbaum, the first woman to lead the Latin American nation, said her government would prioritize tackling the root causes of crime, as well as making better use of intelligence.

“The war on drugs will not return,” the leftist president told a news conference, referring to an offensive launched in 2006 involving the military and supported by the United States.

Since then, a spiral of criminal violence has left more than 450,000 people dead and tens of thousands missing.

Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor who was sworn in on October 1, pledged to stick to her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of using social policy to address the causes of crime.

“We are not looking for extrajudicial executions, which is what was happening before. What are we going to use? Prevention, attention to the causes, intelligence and presence” of authorities, she said.

While Lopez Obrador prioritized prevention over force, he controversially put the National Guard under the control of the armed forces.

Critics said the move marked another step toward the militarization of the country — a claim that both Lopez Obrador and his ally Sheinbaum have denied.

“There are families that today do not have access to reliable municipal police or to a fully strengthened state police force. That’s where the National Guard will play an important role,” Sheinbaum’s public security minister, Omar Garcia Harfuch, said.

AFP contributed to this report.