Mexican governor, senator honored with state funeral

Mexico paid tribute on Christmas Day to Puebla state Gov. Martha Erika Alonso and her husband, former Gov. Rafael Moreno Valle, who died earlier this week in a helicopter crash.

Hundreds of residents of the central state of Puebla, along with members of the local and national political class, bade farewell to the ashes of the power couple, both of whom belonged to the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

Amid heavy security provided by the state police and the Mexican army, hundreds of citizens observed from behind barriers the double funeral, presided over by Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez Cordero.

“Get out! Get out!” shouted some of the people attending the funeral, directing their cries at the minister, while others shouted “Murderers! Murderers!”

Luis Banck Serrato, the head of the Puebla government office, demanded that federal authorities conduct a “professional and independent investigation, which leaves no doubts as to the causes of the accident.”

Attending the funeral were Nuevo Leon Gov. Jaime Rodriguez Calderon, Tlaxcala Gov. Marco Antonio Mena, and the national leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Citizens Movement and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Dante Delgado and Angel Avila, respectively.

On Monday afternoon, the helicopter carrying Alonso, Moreno Valle, an assistant of the latter, the pilot and another top official crashed near the town of Coronango, Puebla.

Alonso had assumed the Puebla governorship - the post in which her husband had served from 2011-2017 - on Dec. 14, after a lengthy and controversial election controversy.