More than 170 attacks have been committed against politicians in the lead-up to the June elections. This violence has put campaigns under tension and is sowing doubts about governability in several regions. Specialists warn that the line between the Mexican state and organized crime is increasingly blurred
Electoral violence is going unchecked in Mexico. Noé Ramos Ferretiz, a candidate for the municipal presidency of Mante, a city in the state of Tamaulipas, was campaigning last Friday when he was stabbed several times. The politician, who is a member of the National Action Party (PAN), died in the middle of the event, to the shock of his supporters. Overwhelming images of blood-stained leaflets circulated afterwards.
The main suspect fled without a trace, in broad daylight. He would be arrested by the end of the weekend. Hours after the crime in Mante, the body of Alberto Antonio García, a mayoral candidate for the ruling party, MORENA, was found in the city of San José Independencia, in the state of Oaxaca. His wife, a councilor in the town of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, was released alive after being kidnapped for two days.
The murders of Ramos Ferretiz and Antonio García are the latest two cases to be registered during the 2024 electoral process. So far in this election cycle, 30 candidates have already been murdered, according to data from the think tank Laboratorio Electoral (“Electoral Laboratory”).
As a mexican living in Mexico, the struggle is real. What is not real is the OP in bold letters. The so called “specialists” are usually a bunch of so-called activists campaigning in the election against the party in power.
There’s also the magnitude of the election not being accounted for. These elections are the biggest in history. It’s only logical that, assuming the high homicide rate in the country, the absolute numbers will be higher. It really sounds like another article trying to tie our president with the organized crime, something that has been shyly thrown at the average citizen several times now. If there was any evidence of this “blurry” line between government and cartels, the opposition to the President and his party would have already use it, since there’s only one month left for campaigning. Instead, we have a paid bot campaign in X/Twitter, a millionaire one, financed by who knows whose money, trying to portray the president as a cartel boss or something. A failing campaign, if we look at the numbers.
I agree on your comment about the current situation. It is very violent. Either it’s getting more reporting than previous years or it actually is as bad as it seems. But I might be misunderstanding the tone of your comment here, it reads very apologetic of the current government to me:
Maybe because it’s true? As another mexican, I have absolutely no doubt the government is working with cartels in different regions in exchange of more control, both ways. And I’m not saying it happened just in this administration, it’s been happening for at least 20 years.
My take is that some regions where the government wants bigger control are currently controlled by rival cartels where the government currently has bigger control in.
I also find it a bit cynical so write that this fact is being “shyly thrown around”, why are there so many articles about it then? The current president –the face of the government– had been seen multiple times visiting el Chapo’s mom. Very shy of him.
The articles are based on no evidence whatsoever. They cite each other and ultimately cite a dropped DEA investigation from 2006.
I find stupid to call the president a cartel asset, yes, I guess that’s cynical. And I’m cynical because everyone knows the president visits every locality of the country. He won’t skip that place only because a cartel leader grew up there. He didn’t go there to visit the old lady, he did visit the locality. As I said before, that woman is already dead, her son and one of her grandsons are in prison. It’s okay if you take it as proof, that’s you, just don’t try to make it pass as undeniable evidence of the president working for some cartel.
Again, it’s not only the current administration, it’s been happening for decades already. They’re not (all) working for the cartels, but with them. If AMLO (initials of the current prez, for anyone reading) is an asset or not is in anyones judgement, I find it more of a “teamwork kinda thing, but what I find most appalling is his shamelesness of this interaction, hell, he even doubled down on it in one of his morning speeches after media called him out on it.
Oh, it is a fact that governments are more vulnerable to corruption as there is a power imbalance. Municipal administrations are the more obvious victims of corruption, but some rich powerful municipalities can combat corruption and drug cartels. You can add some other legally condemned names at state-level and the most egregious case of Genaro Garcia Luna. But the case on point was AMLO. I don’t think it’s a problem to talk about a public act if journalists question him, I share his “shamelessness” since he is not hiding and she was not accused of anything, not even publicly accused. She was, as far as we know, the old mother of a drug lord, worried about her son, probably because she wouldn’t see him before her death.
It’s a fact that local governments are more vulnerable to be corrupted by cartels. It’s been a fact for decades, as we know. We also know now that ex-president Calderon’s federal government was colluded with the Sinaloa Cartel, but we were talking about the president in charge. Maybe his shamelessness comes from the fact that he didn’t do anything wrong and she was not accused of doing anything illegal? After everything you may think you know about her, she was also an old lady probably worried about her son.
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Which government?
PAN controls 20 of the 32 state governments of Mexico and is in deep with the cartel-infested national military.
You really need to check your sources. El Pais was taken over by vulture capitalist Joseph Oughourlian nearly a decade ago and has gone the same direction as the WSJ and WaPo after they got bought out by plutocrats.
Read the immediate next sentence of the one you’re quoting me. But to be more direct: about ~95% of the gov? So, PAN, PRI, and Morena.
Illustrate me with some reliable sources then. I don’t see any “direction” those sources you mention have taken, what do you mean?
Is the president having dinner with El Chapo’s mom enough evidence for you? It might not be straight up evidence but it does point towards it
This is false. By the way, the old lady is already dead.
Ah yes because this could not have happened before she died
It should be easy for you to show any evidence of AMLO having dinner with her when she was alive. Please post your evidence.
I’m saying it’s false that they did have dinner. At least, it’s as false as it’s true. I’m not saying that, because she is dead now, then they couldn’t have had dinner while she was alive. In any case, to make such a bold accusation you sure can post some sound evidence. But you can’t, because there is no evidence of that.
I could not find the information about the dinner thing, I could be mistaken about that but this shows he has relations to her/his family. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-52100264
I don’t know enough about the situation to make an informed opinion, but let’s make a hypothetical:
A government regime cannot be complicit in crimes because if they were then an investigation would have found them complicit in crimes?
That sounds insane. That sounds like a crazy person’s opinion. These deaths and kidnappings aren’t natural. Who stands to benefit from all of this? The answer from where I’m standing seems pretty clear.
It’s late so don’t mind me, but I didn’t get your point. They’re killing candidates from all factions, all parties. Perhaps different people are killing independently for different reasons. Mega corporations killing the candidates that want regulations on their use of water, deforestation, etc. Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and others are devastating the lands and I’m sure they’re profiting nicely from that and don’t want to stop. Organized crime. Corrupt politicians. It’s not simple (or clear) to me, why do you say it is?
Again, you’re claiming that these killings are spontaneous and only coincidentally helps the incumbents or the party leadership positions maintain authority. That doesn’t track. This isn’t normal. This doesn’t happen in other places of the world. For this to not somehow be organized or orchestrated would be completely illogical, because then it would be occurring elsewhere as well.
I get it now. I don’t agree with your points.
I don’t believe it benefits the party that today is dominant, not only because they are getting killed too but also because they are being accused of making Mexico violent and it is super important for them to prove that things are getting better.
This is not the same as saying that the killings are spontaneous, on the contrary, it is an unstable game of power grabbing because of very special circumstances in Mexico that allow this uncertainty of who is getting what in 2024. This in itself lets us see that there are powerful groups fighting and not a tyranny from the current government nor them only silencing opponents.
I don’t know about normal; it isn’t desirable, but perhaps it was to be expected. Why Mexico and not other countries? I think this is an oversimplification.
First, it does happen in other countries, but differently. Some have coup d’États, revolutions, extremist terrorism, etc. Of course if you compare Mexico to Germany, Germans are playing chess under the table. Compare Mexico to Arab countries, African countries, and even violent Latin American countries. Violence exists in many other places. Yet, secondly, you can only see similarities when comparing social circumstances, never mirrors. You won’t find another Mexico in its details because no other country has Mexico’s history. I repeat: it does happen in other countries, but differently. And that’s why what you said was too simple.
Following the last part, no, this can perfectly be complex. ‘Heterogenous’ is the word that is coming to my mind.
To me, it’s more illogical to believe a single force is orchestrating this violence (which, again, is getting people from different groups killed) than to believe it is power grabbing from many sources. The first option even sounds a little conspiracy-theorish or paranoid, if I’m being frank.
Mas alla de que sea cierto lo que decis, me sigue pareciendo una locura pensar en que rapten o asesinen candidatos por una eleccion. Hay alguna tendencia entre las victimas? Son de algun partido en particular?
Sí es una locura. Son cosas que no deberían pasar. En 1994, incluso asesinaron a un candidato presidencial. Siempre se ha asumido que la motivación fue política en ese caso, pero nunca fue realmente resuelto, todo mundo aquí cree que se usó un chivo expiatorio y nadie piensa que el mismo individuo fue autor intelectual.
Pero no es el único caso, en el pasado también se ha asesinado a candidatos, claros favoritos a ser gobernadores de un estado. Los más vulnerables son los candidatos a presidir municipios y existen mecanismos para su protección que a veces no se aplican con suficiente rapidez o fuerza. Las víctimas son de todo el espectro político, a los carteles no les importa la ideología, sólo el poder. Los estados más afectados también son de todo el espectro político, por ahora.
En cuanto a la violencia en general, creo que la gente de fuera de México, que no está tan influida por los medios de comunicación locales y con suficiente educación para leer gráficas, encontrará interesante este estudio de INEGI, que aunque no contiene los datos más recientes, sí son los más precisos sobre homicidios dolosos.
EDIT: Este mes de abril ha sido particularmente violento en México. No teníamos un mes tan violento desde 2022 y espero que no sea el mes que inicie una tendencia al alza de homicidios dolosos.
Es una barbaridad y algo que no debería pasar. No, no existe una tendencia en ese sentido, hay víctimas en todo el espectro político y en estados gobernados por partidos de todas las ideologías. Si lo que te esperas es que el partido en el gobierno tenga menos víctimas por sus supuestos vínculos con el narcotráfico, es completamente al revés: es el partido que hasta hace un par de semanas tenia mas víctimas. También es algo dirigido, pues la tasa de estos homicidios es mucho mayor a la nacional. Existen mecanismos de protección para los candidatos que a veces se activan torpemente o no se activan en absoluto a pesar de ser pedidos, asumo que sí hay casos en los que funcionan esos mecanismos de protección. Casi todas las víctimas son del nivel municipal, que es más vulnerable a la corrupción de los carteles por asimetría de poder.
How come you guys keep rewarding gangbangers?
Shouldn’t you be working together to push them out of your social circles?
We already did. Things are looking better nos.