Dead’ man wins local election in Mexico
MEXICO CITY — For a dead man,
Lenin Carballido apparently ran a
pretty good campaign.
Last Sunday, nearly three years
after he was officially declared
dead, Carballido was narrowly
elected mayor of San Agustin
Amatengo, a small town in
Mexico’s Oaxaca state.
Carballido faked his own demise in
2010, according to Mexico’s
Reforma newspaper, in order to
evade charges stemming from a
2004 sexual assault.
Imagen
Lenin Carballido poses for a portrait
during his campaign in Oaxaca, Mexico,
June 4, 2013. Mexican prosecutors are
investigating how Carballido was
elected mayor of a village in southern
Mexico after being certified as dead.
(Luis Alberto Hernandez/AP)
With police on his trail, Carballido
“died” and obtained a coroner’s
certificate in September 2010,
affirming he had succumbed to
“natural causes” after slipping into
a diabetic coma. The charges were
dropped.
Carballido’s resurrection
occurred this year when he ran as
a local candidate for Mexico’s
leftist Democratic Revolutionary
Party (PRD), beating his opponent
Sunday by a margin of 11 votes,
515 to 504.
Isidoro Yescas, a state election
official in Oaxaca, said
investigators were seeking to obtain
an official copy of Carballido’s
death certificate, which would leave
him unfit for office.
“Even if he’s been elected, such
proof that he committed a crime
would make him ineligible and strip
him of his right to serve,” Yescas
told Reforma, adding “this is not a
typical electoral crime.”
PRD officials said they were not
aware that their candidate was
legally dead.
