Woman mayor killed in Mexico just hours after election of first female president

The woman mayor of a town in western Mexico was shot dead less than a day after the country elected its first female president, in a race marred by deadly attacks on candidates.

The woman mayor of a town in western Mexico was shot dead Monday, authorities said, just hours after the country elected its first female president in a race marred by deadly attacks on candidates. Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa, mayor of Cotija in Michoacán state, was walking from a gym back to her house with her bodyguard when they were shot by people in a white van, the state attorney general said in a statement. Both Sánchez Figueroa and her bodyguard later died in hospital, it said, adding that an investigation has been launched. Confirmation of Sánchez Figueroa’s death came hours after Claudia Sheinbaum won a landslide victory to become the first female president of Mexico, marking an achievement in a country known for its patriarchal culture and widespread femicide. Widespread violence against politicians loomed large in the election, the bloodiest in Mexico’s history. Dozens of political candidates and applicants were killed by criminal organizations during the campaign season in attempts to influence the vote. Sheinbaum will begin her presidency on October 1, replacing the outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, her longtime ally whose social welfare programs lifted many Mexicans out of poverty, making their leftist Morena party favorite in the polls.