LatinNews Monitor: Mexico - 08 January 2016

Gisela Mota Ocampo, the newly elected mayor of the Temixco in Mexico’s central Morelos state, was coldly murdered by presumed criminals on 2 January, just a day after she formally assumed office. Mota’s murder has been directly linked to the state government’s efforts to introduce a single police command structure in Morelos, as advocated by the federal government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto. Morelos Governor Graco Ramírez reacted to Mota’s murder by unilaterally ordering the immediate implementation of the single command structure in all of Morelos’ municipalities. But Ramírez’s bold move has proved to be highly controversial and has sparked an institutional clash, with Cuauhtémoc Blanco, the mayor of Cuernavaca, Morelos’ state capital, who denounced it as an affront against the constitutionally-sanctioned autonomy of municipal governments.