Guerrero: PRI wins elections within violent context

Federal police invade Tepeyac community, Tlapa. Photo @Tlachinollan

With a margin of 41%, the preliminary results of the Guerrero State elections place the PRI-PVEM candidate, Héctor Astudillo Flores, as the winner. Astudillo gained 465 mil 263 votes, 7% more than his most popular rival, the PRD-PT candidate, Beatriz Mojica Morga. The candidate for the Citizens’ Movement (MC), Luis Walton Aburto, took third place, with 91,651 votes. Beyond these, comes the National Action Party candidate (PAN), Jorge Camacho Peñaloza (58,005 votes); the MORENA candidate, Pablo Amílcar Sandoval (30,355 votes), and the New Alliance Party (PANAL), Karime Sevilla (19,625 votes).

In the mayorships, the PRI took 36, the PRD 24, the MC 7, the PAN 4, and the PT and PVEM 2 each, with PANAL taking 1. According to these results, the PRI will retake control of Acapulco, Iguala, and Tixtla, and it will maintain power in Chilpancingo, Taxco, and Chilapa, while the PRD will continue to govern in Zihuatanejo and Cocula, and it will recover Ayutla and Metlatónoc.

On election day, the process took place within a violent context in many parts of the state. In Tlapa de Comonfort, police and soldiers attacked citizens (including two women and a girl) who had kidnapped federal officials, whom they wanted to exchange for 9 imprisoned teachers. The group was arrested by the authorities at the headquarters of the State Coordination of Educational Workers of Guerrero (CETEG) and one house in particular. Abel Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, arrived to the site to mediate a dialogue and interchange between the arrested teachers, who had been transferred by helicopter to Mexico City, and the federal officials. Barrera reported that the Secretary for Governance had accepted the exchange, but that the teachers would be handed over in Chilpancingo. Nonetheless, at night, federal police fired tear gas and live ammunition at the citizenry to disperse them. One youth died by gunfire for this reason.

Tlachinollan has demanded that the security forces that participated in this attack be investigated and sanctioned. The Agustín Pro Juárez Center for Human Rights published an Urgent Action on 8 June that demands that federal and state authorities “guarantee the security of the people of Tlapa and of the people arrested by the federal police at the CETEG offices,” beyond “carrying out an independent investigation,” among other things. Crescenciano Gallardo Sánchez, spokesperson for the CETEG in the Costa Grande, observed that “whoever wins the election, the protests carried out by social organizations in the state will continue, to demand the return with life of the 43 students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, who were forcibly disappeared on 26 September of last year in Iguala, as well as to demand the release of all political prisoners, especially the communal leader Nestora Salgado García.”

A day before the elections were held, Saturday 6 June, there was a confrontation involving members of the United Front for Security and Social Development in Guerrero (FUSDEG) in a rural zone of the Acapulco municipality which left 16 dead and an unspecified number of injured. Nonetheless, the mayor, Luis Uruñuela, expressed that the events do not have to do with the elections, and he claimed that the State Attorney General would investigate the incident.

For more information (in Spanish):

Cómputo del Prep coloca a Astudillo Flores como ganador de la elección (La Jornada de Guerrero, 9 de junio de 2015)

Federales y militares disparan contra civiles en Tlapa; reportan un muerto (La Jornada de Guerrero, 7 de junio de 2015)

Policía ingresa a Tlapa y rescata a federales retenidos; confirman muerte de una persona (Sin Embargo, 7 de junio de 2015)

Gobierno estatal rompió la negociación antes de operativo en Tlapa, denuncian (Centro ProDH, 9 de junio de 2015)

Lamenta el alcalde el enfrentamiento del Fusdeg en Xolapa que dejó 16 muertos (La Jornada de Guerrero, 8 de junio de 2015)

Se proclama vencedor Héctor Astudillo con ventaja de 14 puntos sobre Mojica (La Jornada de Guerrero, 8 de junio de 2015)

Gane quien gane la elección, seguirán las protestas de organizaciones: Ceteg (La Jornada de Guerrero, 8 de junio de 2015)

ACCIÓN URGENTE (Tlachinollan, 7 de junio de 2015)

ACCIÓN URGENTE (Centro de DDHH Pro Juárez)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Guerrero/National: 8 months after the forcible disappearance of the 43 students from the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa, there is no progress (9 June 2015)