10,000 Bid Farewell to Slain Candidate

More than 10,000 people met on Tuesday to bid their final farewell to Rodolfo Torre Cantu, a candidate for governor of the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas who was slain this week along with four associates.

A vigil was held for the bodies of Torre Cantu, state lawmaker Enrique Blackmore and bodyguards Luis Gerardo Sotelo, Ruben Lopez Zuñiga and David Lopez at the Polyforum Victoria in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital.

The slain politician had been leading in the polls for next Sunday’s elections. He was the candidate of a coalition comprising the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and two smaller allies.

Families and friends of the victims, PRI supporters, 15 state governors, leaders of the main political parties and others gathered together for the sorrowful ceremony in honor of Torre Cantu.

During the funeral, current Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez, also a PRI militant, condemned the murders and said that such an “insult of irrational violence...must not go unpunished.”

Hernandez said that he will use the full power and organization of the state to nab those guilty of the murders.

For his part, the national president of the PRI, Beatriz Paredes, asked that politicians “not profit” from the slaying of Torre Cantu.

“We demand respect for our grief, we demand respect for our mourning,” she said.

In a nationally broadcast address, President Felipe Calderon called on Mexico’s political parties, legislators, judges, business community, citizens and media to “determine among yourselves” what the government’s response should be to the killing of Torre Cantu.

“It is essential that all the national political parties and officials at the different levels of government get together on an emergency basis to talk and give a unified and effective response,” he said.

Calderon, who took office in December 2006, has deployed some 45,000 soldiers and thousands of Federal Police officers nationwide to combat drug cartels and other criminal organizations.

Tamaulipas is one of 12 states where voters will go to the polls next Sunday to elect governors, mayors, councilors and state lawmakers.

Election Still on in Mexican State Despite Candidate’s Slaying

The gubernatorial election in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas will be held as scheduled next weekend despite the slaying of Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, candidate Rodolfo Torre Cantu, state elections commission chairman Jorge Luis Navarro said.

The election will take place Sunday and political parties should continue their activities “to allow Tamaulipas residents to express themselves democratically at the polls,” Navarro said.

The Election Code gives the Todos Tamaulipas (We Are All Tamaulipas) coalition, whose standard-bearer was Torre Cantu, the option of entering a new candidate in the race, Navarro said.

The coalition’s members are the PRI, the Green Party and the New Alliance Party, or PANAL.

“The commission will await the decision the coalition makes,” Navarro said.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, said five people died in the attack Monday on the candidate, not the six initially reported.

State legislator Enrique Blackmore Smer and bodyguards Luis Gerardo Sotero, Ruben Lopez Zuñiga and Francisco David Lopez Catache were killed along with Torre Cantu as they headed to the airport in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital, Tamaulipas Attorney General Jaime Rodriguez Inurrigarro said.

The candidate’s private secretary, Alejandro Martinez, and brother-in-law, Enrique de la Garza Montoto, as well as bodyguards Aurelio Balleza and Dante Quiroz, were wounded, Rodriguez said.

The gunmen who attacked the campaign vehicles were armed with large-caliber weapons, Rodriguez said.

The two vehicles carrying the candidate’s party were hit by gunfire at around 11:00 a.m. on the highway that links Ciudad Victoria with Soto la Marina, which is close to the airport.

Torre Cantu was heading to the airport to catch a flight to the border city of Matamoros, where he was scheduled to take part in a series of campaign events ahead of the July 4 election.

The 46-year-old Torre Cantu, a physician, was vying to replace Gov. Eugenio Hernandez.

Investigators are looking at the possibility that organized crime groups were behind Torre Cantu’s killing and will determine what support to provide to state officials, the presidential adviser for international affairs, Rafael Fernandez de Castro said.

“There is the theory that it might have been organized crime, but we need evidence,” Fernandez de Castro said.

President Felipe Calderon, for his part, called on Mexico’s political parties, legislators, judges, business community, citizens and media in a national address Tuesday to “determine among yourselves” what the government’s response should be to the killing of Torre Cantu.

“It is essential that all the national political parties and officials at the different levels of government get together on an emergency basis to talk and give a unified and effective response,” Calderon said.

Calderon, who took office in December 2006, has deployed some 45,000 soldiers and thousands of Federal Police officers nationwide to combat drug cartels and other criminal organizations.

Tamaulipas is one of 12 states where voters will go to the polls next Sunday to elect governors, mayors, councilors and state lawmakers.