Tag: Morena Party

Mexican mayor killed during Day of the Dead celebrations

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A mayor in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan was shot dead in a plaza in front of dozens of people who had gathered for Day of the Dead festivities, authorities said.Local politicians in Mexico are frequently victims of political and organized crime violence.The mayor of the Uruapan municipality, Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, was gunned down Saturday night in the town’s historic center. He was rushed to a hospital, where he later died, according to state prosecutor Carlos Torres Piña.A city council member and a bodyguard were also injured in the attack.The attacker was killed at the scene, Federal Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch told journalists Sunday.The attack on the mayor was carried out by an unidentified man who shot him seven times, García Harfuch said. The weapon was linked to two armed clashes between rival criminal groups operating in the region, he added.“No line of investigation is being ruled out to clarify this cowardly act that took the life of the mayor,” García Harfuch said.Michoacan is one of Mexico’s most violent states and is a battleground among various cartels and criminal groups fighting for control of territory, drug distribution routes and other illicit activities.On Sunday, hundreds of Uruapan residents, dressed in black and holding up photographs of Manzo Rodríguez, took to the town’s streets to accompany the funeral procession and bid farewell to the slain mayor. They chanted “Justice! Justice! Out with Morena!,” a reference to the ruling party of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.In recent months, the Uruapan mayor had publicly appealed to Sheinbaum on social media for help to confront the cartels and criminal groups. He had accused Michoacan’s pro-government governor, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, and the state police of corruption.At the head of the procession, a man led Manzo Rodríguez’s black horse, with one of the mayor’s signature hats placed on the saddle. A group of musicians, also dressed in black, followed and played mariachi songs.In the narrow streets of the agricultural town, where avocados are the main crop, dozens of police and military officers stood guard around the area.The attack on Manzo Rodríguez, a former Morena legislator, was captured on video and shared on social media. The footage shows dozens of residents and tourists, some in costume and with painted faces, enjoying the event surrounded by hundreds of lit candles, marigold flowers and skull decorations. Then several gunshots ring out and people run for cover.In another video, a person is seen lying on the ground as an official performs CPR while armed police officers guard the area.Manzo Rodríguez had been under protection since December 2024, three months after taking office. His security was reinforced last May with municipal police and 14 National Guard officers, García Harfuch said, without specifying what prompted the measure.Manzo Rodríguez, who some nicknamed “The Mexican Bukele” in reference to the tough security policies of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, took office as mayor of Uruapan after winning that year’s midterm elections with an independent movement.The mayor’s killing follows the death of Salvador Bastidas, mayor of the municipality of Tacambaro, also in Michoacan. Bastidas was killed in June along with his bodyguard as he arrived at his home in the town’s Centro neighborhood.In October 2024, journalist Mauricio Cruz Solís was also shot in Uruapan shortly after interviewing Manzo Rodríguez.

URUAPAN, MEXICO —

A mayor in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan was shot dead in a plaza in front of dozens of people who had gathered for Day of the Dead festivities, authorities said.

Local politicians in Mexico are frequently victims of political and organized crime violence.

The mayor of the Uruapan municipality, Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, was gunned down Saturday night in the town’s historic center. He was rushed to a hospital, where he later died, according to state prosecutor Carlos Torres Piña.

A city council member and a bodyguard were also injured in the attack.

The attacker was killed at the scene, Federal Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch told journalists Sunday.

The attack on the mayor was carried out by an unidentified man who shot him seven times, García Harfuch said. The weapon was linked to two armed clashes between rival criminal groups operating in the region, he added.

“No line of investigation is being ruled out to clarify this cowardly act that took the life of the mayor,” García Harfuch said.

Michoacan is one of Mexico’s most violent states and is a battleground among various cartels and criminal groups fighting for control of territory, drug distribution routes and other illicit activities.

On Sunday, hundreds of Uruapan residents, dressed in black and holding up photographs of Manzo Rodríguez, took to the town’s streets to accompany the funeral procession and bid farewell to the slain mayor. They chanted “Justice! Justice! Out with Morena!,” a reference to the ruling party of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

In recent months, the Uruapan mayor had publicly appealed to Sheinbaum on social media for help to confront the cartels and criminal groups. He had accused Michoacan’s pro-government governor, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, and the state police of corruption.

At the head of the procession, a man led Manzo Rodríguez’s black horse, with one of the mayor’s signature hats placed on the saddle. A group of musicians, also dressed in black, followed and played mariachi songs.

In the narrow streets of the agricultural town, where avocados are the main crop, dozens of police and military officers stood guard around the area.

The attack on Manzo Rodríguez, a former Morena legislator, was captured on video and shared on social media. The footage shows dozens of residents and tourists, some in costume and with painted faces, enjoying the event surrounded by hundreds of lit candles, marigold flowers and skull decorations. Then several gunshots ring out and people run for cover.

In another video, a person is seen lying on the ground as an official performs CPR while armed police officers guard the area.

Manzo Rodríguez had been under protection since December 2024, three months after taking office. His security was reinforced last May with municipal police and 14 National Guard officers, García Harfuch said, without specifying what prompted the measure.

Manzo Rodríguez, who some nicknamed “The Mexican Bukele” in reference to the tough security policies of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, took office as mayor of Uruapan after winning that year’s midterm elections with an independent movement.

The mayor’s killing follows the death of Salvador Bastidas, mayor of the municipality of Tacambaro, also in Michoacan. Bastidas was killed in June along with his bodyguard as he arrived at his home in the town’s Centro neighborhood.

In October 2024, journalist Mauricio Cruz Solís was also shot in Uruapan shortly after interviewing Manzo Rodríguez.

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November 3, 2025
Mexico’s first female president completes first year with high approval, but challenges loom

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MEXICO CITY — Each September, Mexico’s president appears before a crowd of tens of thousands in the nation’s central square to perform the grito, the shout of independence commemorating the country’s break from colonial rule.

This year, for the first time, a woman will lead the masses in chants of “Long live Mexico!”

Monday’s ceremony in Mexico City’s main plaza will be a historic moment for the nation and for President Claudia Sheinbaum, who, in her first year as the country’s first female leader, has maintained remarkably high marks despite a spate of domestic and international challenges.

Supporters take selfies with the new president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, after her swearing-in ceremony in Congress in 2024.

(Felix Marquez / Picture Alliance / Getty Images)

Sheinbaum, 63, who took office last Oct. 1, boasts approval ratings above 70% and has notched multiple victories: winning passage of major constitutional reforms, overseeing unprecedented judicial elections and deftly negotiating with President Trump, making concessions on immigration and security to avert the worst of his threatened tariffs on Mexican goods.

She has also overseen a 25% drop in homicides, an impressive feat in a country exhausted by drug violence that she chalks up to her administration’s aggressive new crackdown on organized crime.

“We’re doing well and we’ll get better,” Sheinbaum said this month during a speech to Congress, where members of her political party, which controls both houses of the legislature, cheered her with shouts of “Long live Claudia!”

But perhaps Sheinbaum’s biggest feat has been emerging from the long shadow cast by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a hero among the working class whose support was crucial to her election.

As a candidate for López Obrador’s Morena party, Sheinbaum promised to continue his populist project, which sought to reduce poverty and shift power away from traditional economic and political elites.

Mexicans line up at a polling station in Guadalajara on June 2, 2024, the day voters cast ballots to elect Claudia Sheinbaum the president of Mexico.

(Ulises Ruiz / AFP via Getty Images)

After she won in a landslide, she faced criticism that she would be his “puppet,” a discourse she dismissed as sexist.

Still, there’s no question that Sheinbaum has had to walk a tricky line: defining her presidency on her own terms while also demonstrating loyalty to the political movement that got her there.

As López Obrador has retreated from public life, retiring to his ranch in southern Mexico, Sheinbaum has embraced many of his signature policies, including a popular welfare program that distributes cash to youth, people with disabilities and senior citizens.

She has continued López Obrador’s practice of daily morning news conferences, where she often pays lip service to the former president and repeats his signature phrase: “For the good of all, the poor first.”

Political analyst Jorge Zepeda Patterson said that Sheinbaum has successfully outmaneuvered other Morena party members, including several former political rivals, to be seen as the new voice of López Obrador’s movement.

“She is the heir, she is the interpreter of the entire movement, and that is no small thing,” he said.

Supreme Court President Hugo Aguilar Ortiz receives a traditional purification ceremony from representatives of Indigenous communities during the swearing-in ceremony at the Supreme Court building on Sept. 1 in Mexico City.

(Hector Vivas / Getty Images)

Sheinbaum also muscled across the finish line one of his most controversial undertakings: an overhaul of the judicial system that mandates judges be elected by popular vote. Critics argue the move was designed to concentrate power in the hands of Morena and opens the door to corruption.

“That’s something dictators only invent to control the judiciary,” said Ernesto Zedillo, a former president and leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

But while furthering López Obrador’s agenda, Sheinbaum has also quietly been carving her own path.

While he was combative and highly ideological, railing for hours at his news conferences against neoliberalism and the “power mafia” that he said long controlled Mexico, Sheinbaum has embraced a more diplomatic tone. She says Mexico’s future depends on its entrepreneurs. In her news conferences, she chooses her words carefully, a serene smile on her face.

Her most significant departure from her mentor has been on matters of security.

As part of his “hugs not bullets” policy, López Obrador scaled back security cooperation with the U.S., ordered soldiers to stop confronting cartels and put an emphasis on new social programs. Throughout his six-year term, homicides hovered near record highs and criminal groups expanded their control.

Sheinbaum, under pressure from Trump to clamp down on drug trafficking, has changed tack, dismantling fentanyl labs, carrying out major drug busts and sending dozens of accused cartel leaders to the U.S. to face justice.

Despite those wins, major challenges loom.

The biggest one is Trump.

Trucks queue near the Mexico-U.S. border before crossing the border at Tijuana on March 4.

(Guillermo Arias / AFP via Getty Images)

Mexico’s economy was already on the rocks when the U.S. president began issuing tariff threats, spooking overseas investors who once viewed Mexico as a pipeline to move products into the U.S. tax-free. As a result, growth has slowed.

Sheinbaum and Trump have yet to meet, but have spoken several times in phone conversations both leaders have described as successful. “More and more, we are getting to know and understand each other,” Trump said in August.

For Sheinbaum one constant pressure is the threat of U.S. military action in Mexico.

Trump recently signed an order allowing the Defense Department to use force against Latin American drug cartels, which he has designated as foreign terrorist groups. The U.S. military recently destroyed a Venezuelan boat it said was trafficking drugs, killing 11.

President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador attend a ceremony on Sept. 19, 2024, commemorating lives lost during major earthquakes that have hit Mexico on Sept. 19 in 1985, 2017 and 2022.

(Guillermo Arias / AFP via Getty Images)

Carlos Bravo Regidor, a Mexican political analyst, said much of Sheinbaum’s first year has been dominated by two men: Trump and López Obrador, who is commonly known by his initials, AMLO.

“She’s trapped between the legacy of AMLO and the reality of Donald Trump,” he said.

Sheinbaum’s posture on possible U.S. military action embodies how she’s dealt with Trump. She’ll speak plainly — “There will be no invasion” and Mexico is “not a colony of anyone” — but resists engaging in tit-for-tat remarks to stoke Trump’s ire.

More than once, when asked to respond to Trump’s latest hyperbolic comment, she’s replied: “President Trump has his own way of communicating.”

President Sheinbaum speaks during the first State of the Union report of her tenure at Palacio Nacional on Sept. 1 in Mexico City, Mexico.

(Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)

Still, there’s little doubt that Sheinbaum has benefited from the wave of nationalism that has surged here in the face of an American president who persecuted Mexican migrants living in the U.S. and threatened drone strikes on Mexican territory. That sentiment is likely to be on display on Monday, when Mexicans don the red, white and green of their flag and convene in the Zócalo for the independence celebrations.

There will also be a strong current of feminism.

Sheinbaum has often repeated the mantra she first spoke the night she won office: “I didn’t arrive alone, I arrived with all Mexican women.”

For many Mexicans across party lines, her presidency has been transformative.

Mexico City resident Esther Ramos, 40, said she planned to take her young daughters to see Sheinbaum deliver the grito, not as a lesson in politics, per se, but as a lesson in what is possible.

“My two daughters will see that a woman is capable of achieving whatever they want,” she said.

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Kate Linthicum

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September 14, 2025
At least 9 people dead after winds topple stage in northern Mexico

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A strong gust of wind toppled the stage at a campaign rally Wednesday evening in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, killing at least nine people — including a child — and injuring 63, the state’s governor said.The collapse occurred during an event attended by presidential long-shot candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez, who ran to escape. Videos of the collapse on social media showed people screaming, running away and climbing out from under metal polls.The victims “will not be alone in this tragedy,” Máynez told reporters Wednesday night, adding that he had suspended upcoming campaign events.Afterward, soldiers, police and other officials roamed the grounds of the park where the event took place while many nearby sat stunned and haunted by the tragedy.Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he “sends a hug to family members, friends of the victims and political supporters.” Condolences poured in from across Mexico, including by other presidential candidates.In a video message, Nuevo Leon Gov. Samuel Garcia, a leading member of Máynez’s Citizens Movement party, asked residents to shelter in their houses for the next two hours.Máynez wrote in his social media accounts that he went to a hospital after the accident in the wealthy suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia, near the city of Monterrey. He said he was in good condition.“The only important thing at this point is to care for the victims of the accident,” he wrote.Videos of the accident showed Máynez waving his arm as the crowd chanted his name. But then he looked up to see a giant screen and metal structure toppling toward him. He ran rapidly toward the back of the stage to avoid the falling structure, which appeared to consist of relatively light framework pieces as well as what appeared to be a screen with the party’s logo and theater-style lights.Máynez has been running third in polls in the presidential race, trailing both front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling Morena Party and opposition coalition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez. Both sent their condolences, and Sheinbaum canceled a campaign event in nearby Monterrey the next day “in solidarity” with victims and their loved ones.“My condolences and prayers with the families of the dead, and my wishes for a speedy recovery to all those injured,” wrote Gálvez in a social media post.The accident happened at the height of campaign season, with many events held this week and next in anticipation of the June 2 presidential, state and municipal elections.The campaign has so far been plagued by the killings of about two dozen candidates for local offices. But it has not been marred by campaign accidents.

SAN PEDRO GARZA GARCIA, Mexico —

A strong gust of wind toppled the stage at a campaign rally Wednesday evening in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, killing at least nine people — including a child — and injuring 63, the state’s governor said.

The collapse occurred during an event attended by presidential long-shot candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez, who ran to escape. Videos of the collapse on social media showed people screaming, running away and climbing out from under metal polls.

The victims “will not be alone in this tragedy,” Máynez told reporters Wednesday night, adding that he had suspended upcoming campaign events.

Afterward, soldiers, police and other officials roamed the grounds of the park where the event took place while many nearby sat stunned and haunted by the tragedy.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he “sends a hug to family members, friends of the victims and political supporters.” Condolences poured in from across Mexico, including by other presidential candidates.

In a video message, Nuevo Leon Gov. Samuel Garcia, a leading member of Máynez’s Citizens Movement party, asked residents to shelter in their houses for the next two hours.

Máynez wrote in his social media accounts that he went to a hospital after the accident in the wealthy suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia, near the city of Monterrey. He said he was in good condition.

“The only important thing at this point is to care for the victims of the accident,” he wrote.

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Videos of the accident showed Máynez waving his arm as the crowd chanted his name. But then he looked up to see a giant screen and metal structure toppling toward him. He ran rapidly toward the back of the stage to avoid the falling structure, which appeared to consist of relatively light framework pieces as well as what appeared to be a screen with the party’s logo and theater-style lights.

Máynez has been running third in polls in the presidential race, trailing both front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling Morena Party and opposition coalition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez. Both sent their condolences, and Sheinbaum canceled a campaign event in nearby Monterrey the next day “in solidarity” with victims and their loved ones.

“My condolences and prayers with the families of the dead, and my wishes for a speedy recovery to all those injured,” wrote Gálvez in a social media post.

The accident happened at the height of campaign season, with many events held this week and next in anticipation of the June 2 presidential, state and municipal elections.

The campaign has so far been plagued by the killings of about two dozen candidates for local offices. But it has not been marred by campaign accidents.

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May 23, 2024