Mexico Elections Cast a Light on Powerful Governors - and Hope for Change Nina Lakhani - The Guardian
go to original June 2, 2016

Veracruz state governor Javier Duarte (Roger López/The Guardian)

Alexander Figueroa was eating lunch with his family when armed men burst in and forced them to the ground, screaming “where’s the boss?” The assailants, who wore bulletproof vests, military-style boots and buzzcuts, methodically searched the house before dragging the 22-year old away.

Minutes later, a convoy of Mexican army vehicles pulled up at the house in Cordoba, a colonial town in Mexico’s southeastern Veracruz state. Like the gunmen, the soldiers said they were also looking for Figueroa’s father, a local leader of the sugar cane workers’ federation. He was not at home, and escaped arrest, but his son has not been seen since the raid in December 2014.

“We’ve searched for him in the hills, rivers, and mass graves but there’s no news of him,” sobbed Figueroa’s mother, Ana Lilian Ortiz. “We have photos and witnesses but the authorities deny the military were ever here.”

Figueroa is one of scores of people to have disappeared in the region over the past six years amid escalating violence between warring cartels and corrupt security forces.

Under the rule of governor Javier Duarte de Ocho, Veracruz has become one of Mexico’s most dangerous, most censored and most indebted states.

Duarte, who represents the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), cannot run for re-election this Sunday, when 12 states including Veracruz hold gubernatorial elections.

But the depth of his unpopularity could help put an end to 86 years of consecutive PRI rule in Veracruz – a huge blow for the party which has long dominated Mexican politics, just two years before a presidential election.

Read the rest at The Guardian

Related: 'There Are Two Governments': Mexican Elections Held in Shadow of the cartels (The Guardian)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!