Trotterdam wrote: However, breaking down crime rates by age group would pretty easily expose the lie, and it wouldn't last long anyway because such a high population growth is unsustainable.
I think the trick would be to decant a lot of newborn angels leading up to the election, thereby enhancing campaign baby kissing while diluting the national murderosity, and then disappearing a proportional number post-election thereby preventing the famine.
You're the hero twice.
Plus, the combination of hypo- and hyper-murder periods will maintain the population as an overall running average. The size and duration of said periods can also be carefully adjusted so as to finesse the crime rate as needed.
One can add clever metaphor about short memories and/or "fake news" in the election cycle as needed.