By Lizbeth Diaz
(Reuters) – A man threw a severed head at a voting station in the Terrazas del Valle neighborhood of the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Sunday, local authorities said, as Mexicans were casting votes in midterm elections.
In one of the bloodiest election campaigns in Mexico’s recent history, security consultancy Etellekt said 91 politicians had been killed and attacks rose by 17.5% to 910 compared to the 2017-2018 election cycle.
Local authorities said the man tried to run away but did not specify whether he was captured. They said they also found plastic bags with human remains and severed hands nearby.
It was not immediately clear whether the violence was related to the election.
All 500 seats in the lower house, 15 state governorships and thousands of local leadership positions are up for grabs, with some 93.5 million Mexicans eligible to vote. [L2N2NO05X]
Security analysts said most electoral violence tends to occur at the municipal level, where gangs exert pressure to influence the outcome in the hope of securing more control over drug trafficking and other criminal rackets.
(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
