In the last decade, 36 politicians were killed in 53 attacks in Mexico City and the four surrounding states. Fifteen of the political murders in the area, i.e. 42% of the total, and 24 attacks, i.e. 45% of the total, took place in the State of Mexico, that was ruled by Enrique Peña Nieto until he become President. 

From 2005 to 2015 nine politicians from Puebla, seven from Morelos, four from Hidago and one from Mexico City were killed in the political center of the country. 

Of these, nine were former mayors, four councilors in office, seven aldermen, four former aldermen, two trustees, two former trustees, two former local congressmen, one local representative, one federal representative, three candidates and a municipal delegate. 

Regarding the attacks, two of them were against Coahuila representative David Figueroa Ortega, one in Toluca (2006) and one in Mexico City (2007). 

The remaining 51 attacks were against 24 politicians from the State of Mexico, ten from Puebla, 10 from Morelos, four from Hidalgo, two from Tlaxcala and one from Mexico City. 

The party with more victims is the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), with 20 homicides, followed by five from the National Action Party (PAN), five from the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), one from the Green Party (PVEM), one form the New Alliance Party (Panal), two from a PAN-PRD coalition, one from the Labor Party-Convergencia alliance and one independent. 

According to a database of EL UNIVERSAL, political violence in the center of the country has increased since 2010, because 80% of the attacks in the last decade happened in the last five years. 

Moreover, the geographical distribution of these crimes goes against the notion that the capital city is shielded from such violence. 

The footprint of drug trafficking 

José Luis Solís González, PhD in Economics from Picardie University, member of the National System of Researchers and coauthor of the book "Tiempos violentos, barbarie y decadencia civilizatoria" (2014), argues that organized crime is already part of the domestic oligarchy headed by "Atlacomulco" -the city where President Peña Nieto and other politicians from the ruling party were born- and attributes the political violence in the area to the commercial expansion of drug trafficking. 

"Opiates are produced in the central states, but synthetic drugs are all over the country, and since selling cocaine is essential for the business model, the cartels come to Mexico City, which is the largest market. This will be the mother of all battles," he warned. 

José Luis Dominguez, PhD in social investigation by the Latin American Social Sciences Institute, agrees: "The metropolitan area is full of home laboratories, from Nezahualcóyotl to Naucalpan, that produce, smuggle and sell methamphetamines.