ON A sunny day in Oaxaca, the capital of a southern Mexican state with the same name, the mayor of a nearby village was due to meet The Economist to talk about doing the job after his predecessor was murdered. He did not show up. The night before a bullet had smashed a window of his house. “I’m scared,” he said in a message.

Between 2010 and 2017, 42 mayors were murdered in Mexico (see chart), 12 of them in the state of Oaxaca. A further ten mayors or ex-mayors have been killed this year. A mayor is 11 times more likely than an ordinary citizen to be a murder victim, says David Shirk of the University of San Diego in California.