The security questions when the presidential candidate stopped at the checkpoint. :NPR

MEXICO CITY -Mexico is a country in the middle of a deadly turf war between rival cartels and government security forces.

One of the symbols of this territorial war are the checkpoints. Sometimes they are led by municipal or military police, other times by mysterious masked men. They usually ask you a few questions, take some notes, and you’re ready for your destination.

On Sunday, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s leading presidential candidate, was stopped at one of those roadblocks by a group of men covering their faces with balaclavas.

In video of the meetingSheinbaum, who is on track to become Mexico’s first female president, watches as a man tells her: “When you come to power, remember the mountains, remember the poor. That’s all we have to say. We’re not against of that”. government; “We are here so you can see the disaster that is Comalapa.”

Comalapa is a small town in Chiapas, a state in southern Mexico that borders Guatemala and used to be relatively peaceful. But as Mexico’s two largest organized crime groups (the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel) have tried to spread into new territories, their fights have brought with them chaos to Chiapas.

So who were these mysterious masked people? Latinus, an online news site that was there when it happened, He says they are “self-defense forces”, armed civilians patrolling their communities.

In comments to the press, Sheinbaum did not clarify anything. Instead, he hinted that this was organized by his wealthy opponents.

“They said they were villagers, that they weren’t stuck up. It’s all very strange.” sheinbaum said. A journalist notes that some of the villagers told them that the masked men were actually members of the Sinaloa cartel. “I don’t think so,” Sheinbaum says.

In his morning briefing, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador downplayed the incident.

“This is propaganda” López Obrador said, adding that most likely the masked men had been planted by political enemies. The incident will be investigated, the president said, but he said it was not “very serious.”

But the encounter at the checkpoint reveals the fragile security situation in the country. As cartels fight for territory and power, they have turned parts of Mexico into some of the most violent places on Earth. And the violence has not spared the politicians. This political season alone, 17 candidates have been assassinated. Two candidates for mayor They were found dead just last Friday. So far, according to AP, the government has offered police protection to 250 candidates.

Tiziano Bredawho studies political violence in Mexico at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, says it’s difficult to see an incident like this as anything more than a threat to Mexico’s leading presidential candidate.

López Obrador’s government, he said, often dismisses incidents like this, because if it admits that organized crime or some other group is trying to intimidate Mexico’s leading presidential candidate in such a crude way, it would be a tacit acknowledgment that “things “They’re really out of control.”

“This means that the government has not been able to stop organized crime and in some ways has allowed it to grow even further to this level,” he said.

Sheinbaum, whose wide lead in opinion polls puts her on track to become Mexico’s first female president in the June 2 election, is campaigning without much confidence.

His campaign has mainly avoided the violence that afflicts Mexico and has focused on the social programs that have made the current president enormously popular. Your opponent, Xóchitl Gálvez, has focused on security. His campaign slogan is: “For a Mexico without fear.”