Violence Targeting Local Officials | 2026 Annual Report

Local officials face public rage against the state machine

Local officials often become lightning rods for broader societal grievances. Large-scale protest movements in recent years have directed their frustration and anger at local authorities, viewed as the nerve endings of a failing or corrupt state. In 2025, politicians’ residences were targeted in Nepal, civil servants were killed during demonstrations in Indonesia, protesters vandalized a political party's premises in Serbia, and officials were targeted for their proximity to the president in Peru. Incidents like these, recurring features of social unrest in several countries, are emblematic of a wider institutional delegitimization.

Yet, another threat in some more-advanced democracies comes from people who perceive local authorities as political rivals or enemies. Especially in Europe and the United States, a pernicious mix of fierce political polarization and unchecked competition for political dominance exposes politicians, and especially local elected officials, to a growing trend of harassment, abuse, and violence.¹ The resulting effect of this climate of fear is that capable individuals, often from vulnerable communities, are pushed out of public life, leading to a gradual democratic erosion.²

Captured governance and the shadow state

Compounding these threats is the role of organized crime and non-state armed groups. In areas where criminal organizations are entrenched, targeting local officials becomes a predatory strategy. This type of violence is common across Latin America, where cartels seek to exercise control over illicit markets and retaliate against non-cooperative or disloyal local officials.³ Yet it rarely is a solely criminal matter⁴: Not only do attacks in cartel-dominated areas increase during local elections, but, in some cases, politicians have also been reported to turn to organized crime to orchestrate the killing of their rivals.

In 2025, violent Islamists, separatists, and other armed militias targeted local officials to defy state authority across large parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The abduction and assassination of local authorities, as well as sabotage of state-linked infrastructure, seek to delegitimize the central government and establish rival systems of authority.

By eliminating or coercing those in charge of public works, local budgets, and law enforcement, criminal cartels and insurgents can effectively capture state institutions and hollow out the government from within. Once the integrity of a functioning community is breached by a “shadow state” driven by illicit interests, the result is not just a rise in crime, but a total destabilization of the local economy and the investment climate.

A state that cannot secure its local representatives is a state whose sovereign integrity and institutional stability are at risk. By understanding the patterns of violence against those who represent the state at its most local level, we gain a clearer view of the tremors that precede broader systemic collapse.