Fresh Turmoil Ends Calderon's 2nd Year as Mexican President

Fresh turmoil ends Felipe Calderón's 2nd year as Mexican president

11:32 PM CST on Sunday, November 30, 2008

By LAURENCE ILIFF / The Dallas Morning News
liliff@dallasnews.com

MEXICO CITY – November was not kind to Felipe Calderón, as he completes today the second year of a difficult presidency that promised education, jobs and security.

The month brought fresh levels of violence, scandal and economic malaise that threaten the well-being of not just Mexicans, but also Texans, for whom Mexico is both an attractive export market and the source of illegal narcotics and drug-related violence that reaches Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond.

Mexico buys more of the state's exports than any other country – $47 billion worth during the first nine months of 2008, up more than 13 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to WiserTrade, which tracks U.S. Census Bureau data.

Some in the Mexican political elite warn of a coming institutional meltdown unless the conservative president changes course. But many average Josés and Juanas hold out hope that Mr. Calderón can turn back the drug cartels and reboot an economy that continues to export illegal workers at a time when the U.S is struggling to keep its own citizens employed.

"For me, Felipe Calderón is one of the good guys," said Ricardo Montiel, 38, a taxi driver in the tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta, which is hurting as a result of the U.S. economic downturn and sporadic drug violence.

"He's the only president who has taken on the drug traffickers and criminals and is not corrupt like all of the others," he said. "And he has helped the poor with housing and other government programs."

U.S. officials, including U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza, strongly support Mr. Calderón with not just talk but also a three-year, $1.4 billion aid program called the Mérida Initiative passed by Congress this year.

Success in rhetoric

In opinion polls, Mr. Calderón has enjoyed approval ratings of about 60 percent since taking on the drug traffickers shortly after his inauguration Dec. 1, 2006. Part of that popularity, critics said, comes from nonstop government advertising and rhetoric that equates the increasing drug-related body count with success and not failure. The critics warn of weakness in next year's midterm elections as the ruling party from 1929 to 2000, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, leads in voter preferences, thanks to nostalgia for a less violent era despite the party's authoritarian and corrupt past.

Some say negative numbers will catch up to Mr. Calderón.

"He was going to be the education president, then he was the jobs president, now he's the security president, but he's locked into what seems to be a dead-end strategy to fight against organized crime," said Daniel Lund, president of the MUND Group, a political research group.

Mr. Lund said that along with falling wages, growing unemployment and rising inflation, the 14 bodies per day piling up in drug-related violence – twice the level of last year – would put Mr. Calderón's approval rating at closer to 40 percent if the question is whether he's doing a "good" job.

November represented probably the worst month of a bad year, analysts said, after what appeared to be a fairly promising 2007. Then, the public applauded Mr. Calderón's attack on drug traffickers with thousands of military troops and federal police sent to the Mexico-Texas border and other cartel strongholds.

The November results in terms of deaths, high-level corruption and scandal – along with rising common crimes like kidnappings – have grown worse by the day.

•On the afternoon of Nov. 4, a government Learjet carrying Mr. Calderón's close friend and adviser – the powerful head of the Interior Ministry – crashed into Mexico City rush-hour traffic. Many Mexicans feared that Juan Camilo Mouriño's death may have been from sabotage by drug cartels, but a preliminary investigation pointed to pilot error.

•On Nov. 20, Noé RamÃ*rez, head of the organized crime division of the attorney general's office and Mr. Calderón's "drug czar" for the first 20 months of his term, was put under house arrest after an informant in U.S. custody accused him of taking $450,000 per month in drug cartel money in exchange for protection.

•In Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, teachers and students were threatened with physical violence if the educators did not hand over their coming Christmas bonuses to organized crime figures. Separately, seven bodies were dumped at a school soccer field.

•Annual inflation hit its highest level since 2001 – 6.18 percent – as the value of the peso fell against the U.S. dollar and U.S. imports became more expensive.

•Unemployment rose among Mexicans in the U.S., who sent fewer dollars to needy families back home or returned altogether.

•The price of Mexican crude exports sent mostly to the U.S. fell to its lowest level in a year, putting pressure on a budget that relies heavily on oil sales to fund social programs.

Commentator Ciro Gómez Leyva, writing in the Mexico City newspaper Milenio, cited those developments and others, saying, "These must be the worst 100 days in the history of Mexico, at least as far as this century goes."

Pledge to fight crime

In Ciudad Juárez, the current epicenter of drug violence, the killing continues. On Friday, gunmen stormed into a popular seafood restaurant and fired more than 100 rounds, killing eight people. About 1,350 people have been slain in the city this year.

Sunday, Mr. Calderón pledged to clean up corruption within his administration, vowed that his government would never negotiate with drug lords and promised to continue the battle against organized crime, no matter how violent it gets.

"Let's get real," said Ernesto Olivas, 45, a shop owner along Juárez Avenue, which seemed deserted earlier in the week. "How can you take on these cartels when the government corruption is so profound and we have such poorly trained and corrupt police? Calderón might have good intentions, but he's very naive."

While the overall economic, immigration and security panorama was bleak, Peter Ward, a professor at the University of Texas and former head of its Mexico program, said Mr. Calderón was the type of president who could face such difficulties.

"I don't get a sense of doom and gloom," Mr. Ward said. "Yes, on the narco front, his drug czar has been arrested, but I think people here put a positive spin on this. This demonstrates that the government is working. There is a sense of frustration, of course, but this is how democracy should work. It's messy sometimes.

"I think people recognize Calderón is doing the best he can, the best that can be reasonably expected."

Staff writer Alfredo Corchado in Ciudad Juárez and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

CALDERÓN'S LEGISLATIVE HITS AND MISSES

March 2007

Pension reform: After a grueling fight with government workers' unions, Mr. Calderón gets his first major reform through Congress, which creates individual retirement accounts for public workers (they had already existed for private workers) in order to save the pension fund from bankruptcy.

September 2007

Tax reform: Congress passes landmark changes in the tax code designed to close loopholes for business through a "minimum corporate tax" of 17 percent and to capture income from tax evaders in the informal economy through a 2 percent tax on cash deposits over 25,000 pesos, about $2,000.

October 2008

Energy reform: After watering down his proposal to save the declining state-run oil company Pemex by allowing more private investment, Mr. Calderón gets it through Congress. But gone from the original bill are key provisions that would allow public-private ventures to drill in the Gulf of Mexico.

SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 3d3f0.html