On Friday, Gisela Mota was sworn in as the new mayor of Temixco, Mexico. On Saturday, four gunmen stormed into Mota’s home and murdered her.
Mota was elected as a member of the leftist party. According to The Guardian, she had had a career as a federal member of congress before being elected as mayor to Temixco, a city of 100,000 people 60 miles south of Mexico City.
Temixco, “the city of eternal spring,” was once a vacation spot for residents in Mexico City, but because it’s along a major drug route in disputed cartel territory, it’s become dangerous enough — with kidnappings and murders on a regular basis — to drive tourists away from the region in recent years.
Graco Ramirez, the governor of Morelos, blamed the drug cartels for the murder.
Family, colleagues remember murdered Mexican mayor Gisela Mota https://t.co/UoPndWypEo pic.twitter.com/pLLIHbWjaO
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) January 6, 2016
According to CNN, two adults and a teenager have been arrested in connection with the murder.
The drug war has made it a dangerous time to be a mayor in Mexico, especially if you’re someone interested in doing right by your town and cracking down on crime. Just last month, a candidate for mayor from the leftist party in Morelos was kidnapped, only to be recovered the same day.
Mota was thirty-three years old.
Featured image via Twitter
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