A month has passed since Miguel Bahena Solórzano, mayor of the municipality of Pisaflores, in Hidalgo, about 325 kilometers from Mexico City, was shot dead by a person who came to the entrance of his house and shot him at least five times. In the midst of the rains that devastated that community, one of 28 in the state in emergency due to the effects of the storm, the municipality was plunged into uncertainty and a power dispute full of accusations and investigations into the links of the alleged murderers – the director of the National System for the Integral Development of the Local Family (DIF) and an assistant of the same municipality – with the close circle of Silvestre Garcia Márquez, who by law had to assume the position of mayor after the death. from Bahena.
“I do not agree that someone linked to the murderers is the one who represents us (…) It is time to show that unity is strength,” said Lili Esmeralda Bahena Solórzano, sister of Miguel Bahena, murdered on October 20 in a direct attack, in a video uploaded to her social networks. The mayor had been in office for just a year, and arrived under the banner of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM) together with his deputy colleague on the list, Garcia Márquez.
A series of arrests and an ongoing investigation with loose ends have prevented him or anyone else from taking command. Garcia Márquez’s candidacy has been rejected twice in the council, where he lacks a majority to take office. Furthermore, the official was recently accused by the Hidalgo government of having an arrest warrant for the crime of injury and of being linked to the alleged murderers.
The secretary of the State Government, Guillermo Olivares Reyna, said that the official’s sister, Hannia Garcia Márquez, was involved in Bahena’s murder.
Statements like this, and those of other top state officials, intersect and leave even more doubts in the air. This Wednesday, in an interview with the newspaper Hidalgo criterionthe head of the State Attorney General’s Office (PGJEH), Francisco Fernández Hasbun, assured that the case will be resolved soon, but opened up even more questions: “It is something that does not derive from a criminal matter, but from personal issues within the Administration. This is what I can say so far, there are already people detained,” he said.
A plot of arrests and suspects involved
One day after Bahena’s murder, the DIF director was arrested. Johny René “N”, the alleged mastermind of the incident, accompanied by a woman who was identified and named publicly only several days later. Although it was a first arrest for “health crimes” – for alleged drug dealing and possession of weapons – the trial continued in freedom. A few days later, the two people were arrested again, without the woman’s involvement in Bahena’s murder being known until today.
It is now known that Hannia Garcia Márquez, the sister of the deputy mayor, is the woman with whom Johny René “N” was arrested, as well as his partner. Government Secretary Hidalgo said about the situation of the deputy: “He is faced with the mistrust that his council, the population, has in the fact that, on the one hand, he is not a resident of the municipality, he lives in Jacala (a neighboring municipality). On the other hand, his sister is currently connected to the issue of the murder of the former mayor himself and which, obviously, caused the rejection of the citizens. Furthermore, it is in the public domain, I do not comment on any situation of disappearance of confidentiality, he finds himself benefiting from a suspended sentence, resulting from a crime of serious injuries committed by him and which, given the alternative of the abbreviated procedure, he availed himself of”.
The other man arrested is César Rubiel “N”, sound assistant in the Social Communication area of the Municipality, accused of being the material perpetrator of the murder.
An inconvenient substitute
Faced with the refusal to assume the presidency of Pisaflores – a municipality of just over 18,700 inhabitants, located in the Huasteca of Hidalgo – Silvestre Garcia Márquez indicated that behind the refusal of his nomination there are “dark intentions, perhaps supported by de facto and illegal power groups”. Furthermore, he made public a certificate from the PGEH, dated November 11, certifying that no data was found to prove that he has a criminal record.
He also demonstrated non-disqualification and with these two documents he appeared before the Electoral Tribunal of the State of Hidalgo (TEEH) to assert his political rights. On November 13, in a long statement, Garcia Márquez wrote: “For reasons unknown to me, the City Council of Pisaflores did not respect the Constitution of the State, the Municipal Organic Law and other laws, since after the tragic death of my friend Miguel Bahena Solorzano, they had to act immediately to protect the government of the municipality, the good functioning of the governing body and social stability. To do this they had to call me to protest. to exercise the position that the people awarded me through their vote.”
Although the alleged material and intellectual perpetrators of the Bahena murder are known and have already been arrested, after a month of investigations and a conspiracy involving several officials from the mayor’s own cabinet, it is not yet known what drove these people to carry out the murder.
Mayors under fire
Violence is rampant in local environments in the interior of the country, where municipal presidents have become a target for criminal groups who want to continue operating and expand their territory. The murder of Bahena Solórzano occurred a few weeks before that of Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán, at the hands of hitmen from the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel.
The governor of Hidalgo, Julio Menchaca, confirmed to the media that the case of violence that ended the life of Bahena Solórzano is not isolated and that the murder has sparked fear among other councilors. At least two municipal presidents expressed their concern to Menchaca about possible attacks by criminal gangs.
One of them, he confirmed, is the municipal president of Tepeji del Río, the morenista Tania Valdez Cuellar, who on October 6 was mentioned in banners with threatening messages posted in various parts of the city and in which she was accused of alleged links with a criminal group and of having violated agreements with it. Valdez Cuellar denied the accusations and confirmed that there is already a complaint regarding these events before the PGJEH.
On October 27, the Pisaflores City Council appointed general secretary Antonio Robles Ramírez as interim director of the Office of the Municipal President while the situation resolves. In a statement the Municipality reported that the decision was agreed due to the “extraordinary situation” that the Administration is going through.
