Shots Fired at Members of Mexican Gubernatorial Candidate’s Campaign Team

MEXICO CITY – Members of the campaign team of the conservative PAN’s candidate for governor of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, Jorge Camacho, came under fire while riding in a vehicle near the town of Petatlan.

The campaign SUV was targeted Friday night after it was used to drive former Government Secretary Santiago Creel to the Zihuatanejo airport following his participation in an event in support of Camacho, the candidate told a local television station on Saturday.

“We divided into two groups. I returned to Acapulco and the SUV took Santiago Creel to Zihuatanejo. When it returned by way of Petatlan, it came under attack by unknown assailants,” Camacho said, adding that the vehicle was hit 20 times but “fortunately” it was armor-plated and no bullets struck anyone inside.

Two members of Camacho’s campaign team, neither of whom was harmed despite being forced out of the vehicle, were traveling in the SUV.

After the pair identified themselves as members of the politician’s team, the assailants fled, Camacho said, adding that they reported the crime Saturday morning.

Guerrero has been racked by violence ahead of Mexico’s June 7 midterm elections, when 1,996 public offices, including 500 seats in the lower house of Congress and nine governorships, including that of Guerrero, will be up for grabs.

Ulises Fabian Quiroz, the candidate for mayor of the town of Chilapa de Alvarez of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was killed on May 1, while Aide Nava, a candidate for mayor of the town of Ahuacuotzingo of the leftist PRD party, was slain in March.