Carlos Manzo Rodriguez was the mayor of Uruapan, Michoacan. He was murdered Saturday night by an assailant during the Day of the Dead celebration in the center of the municipality he governed, where he was with his family.

In Mexico, some people refer to Manzo Rodriguez as the “Mexican Bukele,” referring to his stance against crime, but he rejected that nickname.

“I'm not the Mexican Bukele, but I am 100 percent a Michoacan hat,” he said in an interview published in El Informador in Mexico.

The mayor rose to fame after posting videos on social media where he spoke about his plan to confront crime, mentioning that he had given orders to kill armed criminals who resisted arrest. This sparked criticism against him for possible human rights violations and due process violations, hence the reference to the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.

“If there is a persecution, they must be stopped at all costs,” he said last May, while criticizing human rights organizations: “They don't always do their job well and they don't allow reviews to be carried out.”

Manzo Rodriguez was born on May 9, 1985, in Uruapan, the second largest city in Michoacan; he holds a degree in political science and public administration from the Western Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESO), a Jesuit university in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

How did he become mayor?

Manzo Rodriguez was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), then joined the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party, which led to his election as a federal deputy.

He was a critic of Felipe Calderon's government and its so-called "war on drugs," led by Genaro Garcia Luna, the former Secretary of Public Security now imprisoned in the US on drug trafficking charges.

"The tragedy began in Michoacan on December 11, 2006, when Felipe Calderon decided to militarize the country, not to provide security for citizens, but to be complicit with the cartels he served."

He said this on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies, where he represented District 09 of Uruapan.

On February 27, 2024, Manzo Rodriguez requested a leave of absence as a federal deputy to run as an independent candidate for mayor of Uruapan, which he won.

Manzo Rodriguez repeatedly requested support from the federal government in Mexico to combat crime in Uruapan, and in June of this year, he acknowledged that there was “coordination” with the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, through the Secretary of Security, Omar Garcia Harfuch, to increase security.

However, in mid-October, the mayor stated that 200 National Guard troops had been withdrawn from security duties in the area.

The federal government confirmed that 200 troops had been withdrawn from the area on October 8, but that 100 more arrived on the 18th to reinforce security in Uruapan, with permanent personnel also stationed there.

Tacambaro.

The Mayor's Family

Manzo Rodriguez is survived by his wife, Grecia Quiroz, and two children, one of whom he was holding in his arms when he delivered a message minutes before the attack against him.

Before her husband's coffin in the main square of Uruapan, Grecia Quiroz emphasized that her husband could have been president of Mexico and asked the people to fight against crime.

“Today I tell the people of Uruapan not to give up, to unite, to rise up as he would have liked, to fight, to defend our children tooth and nail, to defend that Uruapan of the past, to defend our country because he would have been the best president of Mexico,” she expressed.