MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -- Political violence has reached "chronic" levels in two south Mexican states, a leading Mexican human rights organisation said on Monday.

The Miguel Augustin Pro Juarez human rights centre said politically-motivated murders, arbitrary detentions and cases of torture had soared in recent months in the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.

"Political violence in Guerrero and Oaxaca has become we would say chronic .. and in recent months it has soared to even higher levels," said the center's director Edgar Cortes.

"The number of cases of torture, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial executions have risen," Cortes told a news conference in Mexico City.

Guerrero, a state of three million people on the Pacific coast where the glamour of Acapulco tourist resort contrasts with the state's poverty, is slated to hold gubernatorial elections this Sunday.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico since 1929, was expected to scrape a narrow victory over the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) but political commentators say the race may be too close to call.

Cortes, a Jesuit priest, said political violence in Guerrero was mainly directed against leaders of social organizations, political activists and also against human rights defenders.

Copyright 1999 Reuters.