July 2,
2010
Are Mexico's Elections Compromised by Organized Crime?
Frontera NorteSur
While
the United States prepares its annual Fourth of July celebration, Mexico will hold its own date with history on the same day.
In
a dozen states, voters will go to the polls to elect local and state officials. Coming one year after mid-term congressional
elections that delivered a stinging defeat to President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party (PAN), and two years before
the presidential election of 2012—when some analysts predict a victory of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI), this year's contests represent an important highway marker on Mexico's political roadmap.
More importantly,
the 2010 elections are an important gauge in the health of Mexico's official transition from an authoritarian state to a plural
democracy in which human rights, transparency and the rule of law are upheld.
But if
this year's campaigns are any indication of the country's political direction, the compass is fast spinning backwards.
The
June 28 assassination of Rodolfo Torre Cantu, the front-running gubernatorial candidate for the PRI and two smaller allied
parties in the border state of Tamaulipas, plunged the electoral process into a new crisis, prompting President Calderon to
cancel scheduled events and convene an urgent meeting of his national security cabinet.
On Sunday, June 27, a bus load
of sympathizers of an electoral coalition including the PAN was shot up in the violence-torn state of Sinaloa, but no injuries
were reported. Sergio Ocampo Brito, a PAN leader and mayoral candidate in a Guerrero mountain community notorious for its
colorful crops of opium poppy, was not so fortunate. Dragged from his home June 25 by armed men, Ocampo's bullet-riddled body
was found over the weekend.
Widespread violence and threats against candidates, party militants, election officials
and the press have been registered. In Aguascalientes, unidentified assailants tossed a grenade at a warehouse used by
the state's election commission, while in Sinaloa firebombs were tossed at offices of the PRD, PAN and PRI political parties.
On
June 23, a group of 15 armed men wearing t-shirts promoting Rafael Moreno Valles, the PAN candidate for governor of Puebla,
allegedly threatened, beat and robbed Ismael Maldonado Flores, a distributor for the Contralinea
news magazine. According to the Mexico City-based press defense organization CEPET, the assailants took money, a laptop
and 2,500 copies of Contralinea.
Nationally, the ongoing disappearance and
presumed kidnapping of 1994 PAN presidential candidate and leader Diego Fernandez de Cevallos also shrouds the political scene.
Emilio
Alvarez Icaza, president of the official human rights commission of Mexico City and a veteran of the civic action organization
Alianza Civica, characterized the electoral map as practically on fire. "The alarming thing is that we are returning to those
practices of the 1980s and before against which so much was fought," Alvarez wrote in a recent column.
In addition
to violent incidents, reports of old-fashioned vote-buying, systematic political spying, Watergate-style break-ins, illegal
use of official positions and programs to promote candidates, and other electoral violations and irregularities have flowed
in the press.
The campaigns have drawn some international scrutiny. A representative of the UN Development Program
in Mexico told reporters five of the 12 state governments holding elections had declined to turn over information on
the operation of social programs in their respective jurisdictions. According to Magdy Martinez-Solman, the state governments
of Quintana Roo, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Veracruz and Tamaulipas did not disclose information pertaining to the functioning
and auditing of the relevant programs.
"When there is no information or when there are no restrictions, there is reason
for concern," Martinez-Solman said. "Above all, serious reasons exist to be on the alert for the use of social programs
in those states right before election time."
Accompanying the election process is one nagging question: To what degree
are the elections compromised by the involvement of organized crime? In the most dramatic instance of possible criminal
infiltration, the expected gubernatorial candidate of a center-left coalition in the key tourist state of Quintana Roo, Gregorio
Sanchez, was arrested by federal police on the eve of launching his campaign and accused of protecting drug traffickers.
"We
have come to the possibility that organized crime will exercise its political force in the upcoming state elections," editorialized
the weekly publication of Mexico's still-powerful Roman Catholic Church, "not only by imposing candidates, assuring markets
and negotiating financing, but also impeding the realization of them and the right of the people to elect the project and
candidate they consider ideal."
The cover of the current edition of Mexico's Proceso
newsweekly displays a map with the title "July 4: Narco Elections."
Although the US press has been jammed with stories
about June 2010 as being the most violent month in Mexico since the ascension of President Calderon to power in December 2006,
it has largely failed to draw any connection between the surge in violence and the timing of the July 4 elections.
Many
of the places where politically-tainted violence has occurred—Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Durango and others—are
precisely the frontlines of the so-called drug war.
In the final stretch of the campaigns, political news was
overshadowed by soccer's 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Political Postcards from the Tamaulipas and Chihuahua Borderlands
Two
northern border states, Tamaulipas and Chihuahua, provide important snapshots of the 2010 electoral process. Engulfed
in a war between the Gulf and Zetas cartels, Tamaulipas has been in turmoil throughout the election campaign. In a big sense,
the Torre assassination, occurring right after the candidate closed his campaign with big rallies, merely marked the tragic
culmination of an electoral process defined by violence.
In May, the PAN candidate for mayor of the border town of
Valle Hermoso, Jose Mario Guajardo, was shot dead along with his son and another man. On more than one occasion, other candidates
have been trapped in shootouts, and on-ground campaigning has proven impossible in some areas.
In the violent "Little
Border" across from Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) declared conditions
did not exist for it to even field candidates, while the center-right PAN announced its candidates would appear on the ballot
but refrain from public appearances.
A similar situation prevails in Chihuahua, where the PRD did not postulate candidates
in 18 rural municipalities plagued by drug-fueled violence. In areas of the Chihuahua mountains, criminal gangs were even reported
to be giving permission for candidates to enter or not enter.
In the Juarez Valley south of the border city, election
officials have reportedly resigned and Oscar Vianez, the brother of the PRI candidate for mayor of Praxedis Guerrero, Octavio
Vianez, was kidnapped in the closing days of the campaign.
Earlier, on June 19, Jesus Manuel Lara Rodriguez, the mayor
of another Juarez Valley town, Guadalupe Distrito Bravo, was shot dead while "hiding out" in Ciudad Juarez. In February
2009, two members of the Guadalupe town council were also murdered.
Allegations of narco corruption have enveloped
the mayor's race for Ciudad Juarez. Last week the PAN announced it would file legal charges with the federal attorney generals'
office, headed by longtime Panista Arturo Chavez Chavez, against PRI mayoral candidate Hector "Teto" Murguia for alleged collusion
with drug traffickers.
The border city's mayor from 2004 to 2007, Murguia has long fended off accusations that
his first campaign and administration were infiltrated by narcos.
Late in this year's campaign, the issue of corruption
also surfaced in the Chihuahua gubernatorial contest. Even as it repeated long-standing allegations against Murguia, who has
denied wrong-doing, the PAN raised new questions about the supposed relationship between Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza
and PRI gubernatorial candidate Cesar Duarte with dairyman Jaime Galvan, detained in Las Vegas earlier this month. Reportedly
a grandson of former Mexican Defense Secretary Felix Galvan, the Chihuahua businessman faces US charges of defrauding the
Export-Import Bank of at least US$ million.
In early June, the impartiality of Chihuahua state officials entrusted
with organizing the election was questioned when the federal attorney general's office detained Ramon Serna, a functionary
of the Chihuahua State Electoral Institute, for possessing 100 packets of information trashing PAN gubernatorial candidate
Carlos Borruel.
Why So Much Commotion?
Considering the historically centralized nature of much of Mexico's political
and economic power, the commotion surrounding the 2010 elections might at first glance seem surprising. But historical rivalries
of capital city versus provincial power combined with more recent free market and political reforms have made state and
municipal offices more important than ever.
In recent years, governors such as Enrique Peņa Nieto in Mexico state,
or Ulises Ruiz in Oaxaca, have emerged as important political actors, capable of negotiating with or defying the sitting president
who, in the old days of one-party PRI rule, could simply appoint and sack governors on a whim.
In addition to controlling
the distribution of federal resources allocated to the states, a strategic resource in electoral times, modern governors also
maintain ties to the huge Mexican diaspora in the US, establish trade and investment offices abroad, deal directly with transnational
corporations, strike up relationships with foreign politicians, and project a distinct identity for their states via
the mass media to a world audience.
In the realm of law enforcement, governors oversee the state prosecutors and police
chiefs who are responsible for investigating serious crimes like murder and theoretically filling in the public safety gap
between municipalities and the federation.
Municipalities remain the low men on the political totem pole, but mayors
and the officials serving under them still wield considerable power, especially in the wake of political and legal reforms
that upheld the autonomy of municipal authority and, in the case of Chihuahua, gave local police the power to arrest (or ignore)
drug offenders.
Locally, municipal governments are responsible for maintaining public order, registering and taxing
properties, expending business permits, approving construction projects, and running public works such as wastewater treatment.
Routinely, municipalities and states outsource road building and other key services to private individuals who stand to gain
from political connections.
If the allegations of Mexican federal prosecutors are true, the power of the municipality
is illustrated in recent investigations of high-ranking federal policemen and Gregorio Sanchez, the former PRD mayor of Cancun,
arrested on charges of protecting organized crime.
Reputedly controlled by the Zetas and Beltran Leyva organizations,
tourist-driven Cancun and the adjacent Riviera Maya, long promoted as the "safe" destination in Mexico, were and still are
lucrative profit centers hosting at least 180 illegal drug retail outlets, money exchange houses and other businesses tailored
for money laundering. With its international sea and air lanes, Cancun also provides a conduit for smuggling immigrants from
Cuba into the United States.
The Cancun experience shows how state-mafia collusion is a dynamic process, marked by
complex negotiations, shifting actors and changing markets.
Prior to the dissolution of one-party rule, such under-the-table
transactions were easily accomplished through the PRI. Nowadays, however, backroom negotiations must be reached with a variety
of political forces and frequently changing police chiefs. It's small wonder, then, that murder and mayhem has touched practically all
the political parties, especially the Big Three of the PRI, PAN and PRD, and visited law enforcement agencies on virtually
a daily basis.
July 4 and Beyond
Mounting tensions surround the July 4 elections. On June 25, the PAN, PRD,
PT and Convergencia parties asked the Federal Electoral Institute to step out of its usual mold and monitor the state contests,
a job which is normally the responsibility of the state institutes. In several states, the parties have formed an unusual
and controversial right-left coalition against the PRI.
Prior to the Torre murder in Tamaulipas, Federal Interior Minister
Fernando Gomez Mont declared his agency had reached agreements with a number of states to monitor the voting. Pledging state
protection, he urged citizens to exercise their civic duty on July 4.
"Today, more than ever, the act of suffrage constitutes
citizenship and patriotism," Gomez Mont said.
The Calderon administration official's positive spin was shared by Fernando
Herrera, president of the Chihuahua State Electoral Institute, who projected a better-than-normal turnout at the polls in
his state [on Sunday].
Others were not so upbeat about July 4 or the longer-term prospects for Mexican democracy. Beatriz
Claudia Zavala, president of the Mexico City Electoral Institute, recently told local legislators that only two in ten Mexicans
believe in the electoral process.
Predicting a "historic abstentionism" due to fear or skepticism, an outgoing PRD
lawmaker from Chihuahua criticized this year's election campaign as so devoid of debate around real issues and so full of
promises of special favors it resembled a "multi-colored piņata." Whether a new political force will emerge from the wreckage
of 2010 is an urgent question, wrote Victor Quintana.
"Will the winners elected by the biggest minority be the ones
who re-launch democracy where they are majorities, and not the elites who make the fundamental decisions?" Quintana wrote.
"And if we cannot expect anything, or hardly anything, from the ruling class, will it then be the citizenry from below which
has the capacity to create actors who could begin reconstructing the public space?"
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Sources:
Lapolaka.com, June 25, 27 and 28, 2010. El Sur/Reforma,
June 24, 2010. Proceso/Apro, May 31, 2010; June 3 and 22, 2010. Articles by Gabriela Hernandez and editorial staff. La Jornada, April 28, 2010; May 9, 23, 24, 27, 28, 2010; June 3, 14, 22, 23, 25, 28, 2010. Articles by Jesus
Narvarez Robles, Alfredo Valadez, Miroslava Breach, Claudio Baņuelos, Victor Quintana, Raul Llanos, Rocio Gonzalez Alvarado,
Julio Hernandez Lopez, Misael Habana de los Santos, and the Notimex news agency. El
Heraldo de Chihuahua, June 23, 2010. El Paso Times, June 20, 2010. Article
by Aileen B. Flores. Diario de Juarez, May 26, 2010; June 16 and 20, 2010. Articles by Francisco Ortiz Bello and editorial staff. El Universal, May 11, 13, 23, and 27, 2010; June 1, 20, 22, 25, 28, 2010. Articles by Ricardo Aleman, Edgar Avila,
Francisco Gomez, Adriana Varillas, Horacio Jimenez, Lugi Rivera, Jorge Ramos, Emilio Alvarez Icaza, Jose Gerardo Mejia, Notimex,
and editorial staff.
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Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
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Reprinted
with authorization from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source; translation FNS
