Fernando Purón had just finished an election debate with his rival congressional candidates in the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras, when a well-wisher asked to join him for a selfie.

But as he posed for the photograph outside the auditorium, a bearded gunman stepped up behind the pair and shot Purón in the head.

The cold-blooded murder on Friday – captured by a CCTV camera – has cast a harsh light on the stunning levels of violence in Mexico and the risk taken by those who run for elected office in the country.

Purón was the 112th politician murdered in Mexico since September 2017 when the election process began, according to Etellekt, a risk analysis consultancy.

And the country is bracing for more bloodshed before 1 July elections, when voters will pick a new president, renew congress and fill hundreds of state and local positions.



The motives for the murder remain uncertain, although Purón had received death threats during his stint as mayor of Piedras Negras, where he had 10 bodyguards and was said to have incurred the displeasure of the city’s dominant crime group, the notoriously ruthless Zetas.

During the debate just before his death, Purón had pledged again to defy organised crime, according to the newspaper Vanguardia. “You take on crime head-on – you don’t fear it, you call it for what it is,” he said. “Unfortunately, not all those in power do their job – some are even in cahoots with criminals.”

Mexico registered a record number of homicides in 2017 – the 11th year of a militarised crackdown on organised crime.



Quick Guide Mexico's war on drugs Show Why did Mexico launch its war on drugs? On 10 December 2006, Felipe Calderón launched Mexico’s war on drugs by sending 6,500 troops into his home state of Michoacán, where rival cartels were engaged in tit-for-tat massacres. Calderón declared war eight days after taking power – a move widely seen as an attempt to boost his own legitimacy after a bitterly contested election victory. Within two months, around 20,000 troops were involved in operations. What has the war cost so far? The US has donated at least $1.5bn through the Merida Initiative since 2008, while Mexico spent at least $54bn on security and defence between 2007 and 2016. Critics say that this influx of cash has helped create an opaque security industry open to corruption.



But the biggest costs have been human: since 2007, over 250,000 people have been murdered, more than 40,000 reported as disappeared and 26,000 unidentified bodies in morgues across the country. Human rights groups have also detailed a vast rise in human rights abuses including torture, extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances by state security forces.



Peña Nieto claimed to have killed or detained 110 of 122 of his government's most wanted narcos. But his biggest victory – and most embarrassing blunder – was the recapture, escape, another recapture and extradition of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa cartel.

Mexico’s decade-long war on drugs would never have been possible without the injection of American cash and military cooperation under the Merida Initiative. The funds have continued to flow despite indisputable evidence of human rights violations.



Under new president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, murder rates are up and a new security force, the Civil Guard, is being deployed onto the streets despite campaign promises to end the drug war. What has been achieved? Improved collaboration between the US and Mexico has resulted in numerous high-profile arrests and drug busts. Officials say 25 of the 37 drug traffickers on Calderón’s most-wanted list have been jailed, extradited to the US or killed, although not all of these actions have been independently corroborated. The biggest victory – and most embarrassing blunder – under Peña Nieto’s leadership was the recapture, escape and another recapture of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa cartel. While the crackdown and capture of kingpins has won praise from the media and US, it has done little to reduce the violence. Photograph: Pedro Pardo/AFP

That the violence is now claiming the lives of candidates and members of the political class is prompting uncomfortable questions in Mexico, where well-paid public servants are often able to protect themselves against crimes such as kidnapping – but have showed a crushing lack of interest in cleaning up corrupt and incompetent police forces.



Late on Monday, Rosely Magaña a town council candidate for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Isla Mujeres, near Cancún, died after a gun attack on her home on Sunday.

“[Politicians] can only protect themselves to a certain point,” said Esteban Illades, publisher of the Mexican magazine Nexos. “Violence is so widespread and so vicious that it doesn’t matter how many bodyguards you have.”



Drug cartels are suspected in many political murders, which overwhelmingly take place in regions already plagued with violence. Politicians from all parties – and at all levels of government – have been attacked.

Earlier this month, three female candidates were murdered within 24 hours. Pamela Terán, a PRI candidate in Oaxaca state, was murdered with a photographer and her driver as she left a restaurant on 2 June. Mexican media reported that Terán’s father had links to organised crime.

That same day, a Green party candidate in Puebla, Iraís Maldonado, and the city councilor Erika Cazares were found dead in their car after a campaign rally. Authorities ruled out theft as a motive.

Fernando Purón’s murder was caught on CCTV. Photograph: CCTV

Candidates have also been targeted in regions that have previously escaped the violence.



Analysts offer varying theories to explain the growing number of attacks on politicians, including efforts by organised crime to infiltrate local institutions and the growing amount of cash in local government.



Federico Estévez, political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, said such attacks reflected the Mexico’s inability to uphold the rule of law.

The murder of candidates “creates enormous insecurity, which is felt and bemoaned by the public – and it’s held up in the faces of the politicians for their incapacity to do anything about it.

“There’s no bigger example of failure out there today than that.”