A mayor was shot dead in southern Mexico on Thursday, authorities said, in a country where local politicians are often targeted by powerful drug cartels.

Prosecutors said an investigation had been launched into the attack on Leobardo Ramos Lazaro, mayor of Chahuites in Oaxaca state, while he was travelling in his truck.

Mexican mayors and other local-level politicians frequently fall victim to violence connected to corruption and the multibillion-dollar narcotics trade.

On January 12, gunmen shot dead a local congressman in the central state of Guanajuato, the scene of a deadly turf war between rival gangs.

Two months earlier the body of a mayor was found dumped in the eastern state of Veracruz after she was kidnapped and killed.

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