Mayoral Race Loser Urges End to Rioting
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — The loser of the election for mayor here urged his supporters to go home Monday and refrain from repeating bloody weekend rioting that left two people dead and 70 injured.
The rioting erupted late Saturday after Coahuila state Gov. Jose Rodriguez de las Fuentes swore in Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Jauristi Septien as mayor.
Eleazer Cobos, of the opposition National Action Party, claims that he won the election by 490 votes, but the state congress of Coahuila threw out 11 ballot boxes and certified Septien as the winner by 183 votes out of 23,000 cast.
“We have won, and our victory will be recognized,” Cobos told 300 supporters. “Remain calm, go home and rest.”
Meanwhile, the discovery of 28 empty weapon and ammunition boxes on the banks of the Rio Grande at neighboring Eagle Pass, Tex., late Monday heightened fears that there might be more violence in Piedras Negras.
A spokesman for the Maverick County Sheriff’s Department in Eagle Pass confirmed that officers, acting on a tip that a cache of arms was entering Mexico, discovered the empty boxes about one-quarter mile north of the international bridge.
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