The growing wave of violence against local authorities in Mexico, with the assassination of the mayor in Uruapan, Michoacán, Carlos Manzo, as a critical point, has set off alarm bells for the Government and its security agencies. Over the last 12 months, 10 mayors have been assassinated in various states of the country. According to official records, the recent wave of attacks against mayors began on October 6, 2024, with the assassination of Alejandro Arcos Catalán (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI), mayor of Chilpancingo, Guerrero. Since then, a dozen mayors have been assassinated in localities in Oaxaca, San Luis Potosí, Guerrero, and Michoacán. However, the one that has raised the alarms is that of Carlos Manzo Rodríguez (Independent), who was executed in Uruapan at a public Day of the Dead event. His assassination has generated strong indignation not only in Michoacán, where protests and clashes between protesters and police forces have been registered, but throughout all of Mexico. According to the Government, Manzo had federal and municipal protection since 2024, which was also reinforced at the beginning of this 2025, which adds to the concern about the vulnerability of the authorities themselves. In Uruapan, a city of about 360,000 inhabitants, several criminal organizations operate, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the Knights Templar, the Viagras, United Towns, and the Whites of Troya. "The municipal level is the weakest link in the country's government structure," explained to EFE the professor-researcher at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Javier Oliva. "And in a country where the law is federalist, but in practice is centralist, the municipality is the one that gets the worst part in terms of the overall budget, then, in large part, that explains not only the security problems, but of all kinds, urban services, health," he added. Where organized crime control begins According to the NGO Data Cívica in its study 'Voting Between Bullets', a report on aggressions to understand political-criminal violence in the country, "municipal power is the most vulnerable link in the face of the territorial control of organized crime" and almost 80% of the victims of political-criminal violence in Mexico are concentrated at this level. For Oliva, a specialist in National Security issues, municipalities are highly exposed to the onslaught of organized crime and its territorial disputes since mayors are responsible for security. "Making the comparison at the level of public security institutions, similarly, municipal police are the ones who have the fewest conditions to structurally face the problem of insecurity, violence, and organized crime," he stated. The same NGO indicated that so far in 2025, Michoacán has registered 25 attacks directed at people in the political sphere, 88% of them with municipal-level positions. The message For the specialist, the message left by Manzo's assassination for the Government is one of "impunity and defiance. That is the evidence it presents and, on the other hand, the lack of responsibility on the part of state governments." He also warned that states such as Oaxaca, Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Sonora, Sinaloa, Guanajuato, have also "been seriously affected (in recent years) by criminal activity." Finally, Oliva lamented that out of the four points outlined in the 'Michoacán Plan', to combat violence and insecurity in the state, presented this week by the president, Claudia Sheinbaum, "not one point comes that indicates the dismantling of criminal activities".
