Veracruz is burning. There are already 75 candidates who have requested special protection due to threats, persecution, and murders.
The Morena governor Rocío Nahle confirmed the figure, although she tried to downplay it by saying that all have received support, even without a formal complaint. The reality shows a state out of control.
The PRI warns that electoral violence is already unsustainable
The state leader Adolfo Ramírez Arana revealed that at least 40 PRI candidates have been intimidated or attacked. “This is getting out of Nahle's hands,” he declared. The party has suspended activities in areas considered high risk.
Two Morena candidates have already been murdered. One of them, Yesenia Lara, was ambushed and executed during a caravan in Texistepec. Days earlier, Germán Anuar Valencia, the licensed mayor of Coxquihui, was murdered.
Both crimes highlight the collapse of the rule of law in Veracruz, where organized crime imposes its rules and the government responds with empty statements. Violence doesn't distinguish parties, but the complicit silence of the president and Nahle fuels impunity.
Conditional protection and insufficient deployment
Federal Deputy Lorena Piñón denounced that the federal government doesn't take the security crisis seriously. She pointed out that the 3,500 National Guard members are not enough to cover the nearly 5,000 electoral sections of the state.
Worse still: candidates like Javier Pérez Roldán only obtained "protection" if they paid for it, according to complaints from his own team.
Nahle boasts that she deployed 800 federal elements, including the National Guard and the Criminal Investigation Agency. But these operations have not stopped the wave of murders nor restored public confidence.
While the government boasts figures, bullets continue to set the agenda. Veracruz not only faces a security crisis but also a deep crisis of confidence. The population no longer believes in the institutions or the promises of the 4T.
Campaigns under fire and the narco as a political actor
The PRI warned that the violence is neither random nor isolated. It claims there is a strategy to intimidate and silence the opposition, while the ruling party remains silent and the president boasts of “governability”.
Electoral violence in Veracruz reflects institutional collapse. Morena talks about sovereignty, but the one who rules the streets is crime. And the votes, today, are contested under threat.
