MEXICAN CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR IS ASSASSINATED

MEXICO CITY -- A popular candidate for governor who had made
increased security his prime campaign pledge was killed along with at
least four others Monday morning in a brazen attack, rattling a
nation already alarmed by surging drug violence.

Despite years of atrocities tied to drug gangs, the killing of a
candidate who was widely considered the front-runner just days before
voters go to the polls drew unusually wide condemnation, and it drove
election-related violence to a level not seen in Mexico in years.

"This was an act not only against a candidate of a political party
but against democratic institutions, and it requires a united and
firm response from all those who work for democracy," a stern-faced
President Felipe Calderon, who has found his presidency repeatedly
bogged down by drug violence, said in a nationally televised address.

Gunmen with automatic weapons opened fire on the motorcade of the
candidate, Rodolfo Torre Cantu, 46, as he headed to an event in the
closing days of the campaign, the authorities said. The murders came
during a rise in election-related violence in recent months,
including the shooting deaths of a mayoral candidate and of an
activist during a get-out-the-vote effort. Explosives have also been
thrown at two separate campaign offices this month.

The Torre killing is arguably the highest-profile case of political
violence since 1994, when a presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo
Colosio, was assassinated. While it has helped unite political
parties that had been in fierce competition, Mr. Torre's death adds
to a particularly dire month for Mr. Calderon, who unleashed a war on
drug traffickers upon taking office in 2006 and has seen violence
spike as a result.

The bloodiest 24-hour period of Mr. Calderon's presidency occurred
this month, when 85 people were killed, 10 of them federal police
officers ambushed by traffickers. Also this month, the authorities
found dozens of bodies, suspected trafficker victims, buried in a
closed silver mine near Taxco, a popular tourist spot.

Statistics compiled by Mexican newspapers show that 2010 is on its
way to becoming the deadliest year since Mr. Calderon took office.
There have been more than 5,000 drug-related killings so far this
year, exceeding the totals in 2007 and 2008 and nearing the worst
year, 2009, when about 6,500 people died in drug-related violence.

Immediate suspicion in the Torre case also fell on drug traffickers.
Mr. Torre's state, Tamaulipas, which borders Texas on the gulf coast,
has been the site of fierce fighting in recent months between rival
drug organizations, the Zetas and their former allies, the Gulf Cartel.

Mr. Calderon has called on the country to stick with him through the
violence, repeatedly describing it as a sign that traffickers were in
their death throes and were striking back because of the sustained
attack by the police and army.

Despite strong backing of Mr. Calderon by the Obama administration,
many Mexicans have increasing doubts and his National Action Party
has suffered at the polls in previous contests, in part because of
weariness with the drug war.

"The argument whereby the government says that the more violence
there is, the greater is their success, is absurd," said Jorge
Castaneda, a former foreign minister and a leading critic of Mr.
Calderon's approach.

Mr. Torre, 46, was a burly, gray-haired surgeon and federal
congressman representing the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or
P.R.I., which currently controls Tamaulipas. He was married and had
three children.

Two campaign vehicles that had been carrying the candidate, aides and
bodyguards to the airport outside the state capital, Ciudad Victoria,
were found about 10:30 a.m. The windows had been shattered by
bullets, the doors were open and bodies were sprawled in the roadway
and on the shoulder in images broadcast on television. Mr. Torre,
whose face was painted on the side of the bullet-ridden vehicles, was
among the dead, the authorities said. Also killed were his campaign
manager, Enrique Blackmore, a state legislator.

Although law enforcement officials were tight-lipped Monday on their
investigation into the killings, politicians said they saw them as a
brash message from organized crime.

"What organized crime wants is that we stay in our houses, that we
are afraid, and they are saying, 'We want to control the country,'"
said Xochitl Galvez, a candidate for governor in Hidalgo State. She
urged voters to turn out at the polls to show that the people, not
criminals, still rule.

Ms. Galvez told reporters that her campaign had received threats from
people who identified themselves as members of the Zetas. As a
result, Ms. Galvez said on Monday that she was moving her children
and other relatives into hiding to keep them save.

Even before the killing of Mr. Torre, those involved in a variety of
the gubernatorial, mayoral and local legislative races to be held
Sunday in 14 states said they had been forced to limit travel during
evening hours and avoid some areas altogether.

In Tamaulipas, rival candidates suspended their campaigns on Monday
to honor Mr. Torre. The Associated Press reported Monday that
elections in the state will proceed on July 4, as scheduled.

The state has been one of the country's most troubled regions
recently. On June 3, in Ciudad Madero, a mayoral candidate and a
candidate for the local congress were pinned down during an armed
battle between rival drug gangs. A month before that, a mayoral
candidate in Valle Hermoso was killed.

Some areas of the state are so dangerous that the president's party
announced last month that it would not campaign in three small border
towns because of the risk to its candidates. An opposition party
candidate announced in April that he was pulling out of his race, one
day after his house was burned down.

On Mr. Torre's campaign page on Facebook, supporters expressed shock
and indignation. "I feel such anger and impotence," wrote one backer.
"How long are these things going to happen?"

Over the weekend, another killing left Mexicans, weary of the drug
wars, shaking their heads. A popular singer who often sang of the
drug trade, Sergio Vega, known as El Shaka, was killed Saturday night
in Sinaloa State. Hours before his killing he had denied false
reports that he had been killed.

"It's happened to me for years now, someone tells a radio station or
a newspaper I've been killed, or suffered an accident," Mr. Vega told
an entertainment Web site. "And then I have to call my dear mother,
who has heart trouble, to reassure her."

The latest report of his death, however, was accurate.