In Mexico there are seven of the 10 most violent cities in the world, according to the most recent report from the Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice. The ranking was made based on a comparison of the homicide rate per 100 thousand inhabitants.
The list is headed by Colima, which in 2023 recorded a total of 461 homicides, equivalent to 140 per 100 thousand inhabitants. Since 2021, the capital of the state of the same name is governed by Margarita Moreno González, who was elected as standard bearer of the Va por Colima coalition (made up of the PAN-PRI-PRD).
Under his mandate, the municipality of Colima reached first place on the list in 2022 and repeated its position in 2023. In the 2024 elections, citizens once again placed their trust in the alliance of the PAN with the PRIsince the mayoral candidate Riult Rivera Gutiérrez got 35.9% of the votesjust above the 33.8% that Azucena López Legorreta, of the Morena-PT-PVEM coalition, achieved.
Ciudad Obregonlocated as the second most violent in the country, is the head of the municipality of Cajeme, Sonora. There, Carlos Javier Lamarque Cano —representative of Brunette and its allied parties—was the winner on June 2, thereby achieving his re-election.
Lamarque Cano became the Municipal President in 2021 and, because he obtained 60.9% of the votes, he will remain in office for one more triennium. In 2023, Ciudad Obregón had a rate of 117 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
Another of the most violent cities in Mexico in which its mayor was re-elected was Zamora, in Michoacan. Although he is in fourth place on the list, in Zamora the winner was the current mayor, Carlos Alberto Soto Delgado, PAN activist.
Manzanilloanother of the Colima municipalities included in the top, will be governed for three more years by Brunette and its allied parties, since its candidate Rosa María Bayardo Cabrera he got 52.53% of the votes. The current mayor, Griselda Martínez, was expelled as a Morena activist in January 2024, after issuing statements alluding to the presence of organized crime at the events of Claudia Sheinbaum, president-elect.
Tijuanaone of the priority territories for organized crime, obtained recognition as the sixth most violent city in the world, with 91.76 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants in 2023. In that municipality, the winner of the recent election was Ismael Burgueño Ruizsheltered by Morena, PVEM and Fuerza por México.
In Zacatecasplace number seven on the list, the population decided not to give a second chance to the current Morenoist mayor, Jorge Miranda Castro, and voted overwhelmingly for the opposition candidate, Miguel Ángel Varela Pinedofrom the PRI-PAN-PRD.
In contrast, the municipality of JuarezChihuahua, granted to Cruz Pérez Cuéllar (from Morena and the PT) the possibility of being mayor for one more period, since he was the candidate with the most votes on June 2, with 57.7% of the votes.
