Congressman Oscar Valentin Leal and his brother were murdered here Friday on the eve of retired Gen. Otto Perez Molina’s inauguration as Guatemala’s president.

The slain lawmaker won re-election in September on the ticket of the Lider party, but had decided Thursday to switch his allegiance to Perez Molina’s rightist Patriot Party, the president-elect said.

It was not the first such switch for Leal, who entered Congress in 2009 as a member of the social-democratic UNE party of outgoing President Alvaro Colom.

Perez Molina said Leal contacted him Thursday night to complain of “pressure” and threats and to say that he was going into hiding.