MEXICO CITY, May 18 — A local politician and his wife were murdered in Mexico’s Pacific coastal resort of Acapulco, his party said Friday — the latest victims of a wave of electoral violence.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said Anibal Zuniga was standing in the June 2 elections to be a councillor in the municipality of Coyuca de Benitez in Guerrero state.

The local prosecutor’s office said it had opened a homicide investigation.

According to Mexican media, the couple’s dismembered bodies were found in bags in an abandoned vehicle.

The husband and wife were "cowardly murdered,” said the PRI branch in Guerrero, a violence-plagued southern state rife with organized crime.

Mexican politicians often fall victim to bloodshed connected to corruption and the drug trade, particularly those running for local office.

On Thursday night, Lucero Lopez Maza, a 28-year-old aspiring town mayor in the southern state of Chiapas, was shot dead along with five other people including a minor, the local prosecutor’s office said.

As of May 1, 26 candidates had been killed since the electoral process began on September 23, according to a count by the civil organisation Data Civica. — AFP