Thread: S.D.U.T. Editorial: The anti-cartel trend

S.D.U.T. Editorial: The anti-cartel trend

Mexican voters may stay course with Calderón's crusade

By UNION-TRIBUNE
Friday, July 9, 2010 at midnight

After all it has been through in recent years, Mexico really needed some good news. And our friend and neighbor got a strong dose from last weekend’s series of state and local elections.

First, try as they might to disrupt the political process and dictate the outcome, the drug cartels failed to do either very effectively. Despite a spate of violence that included four bodies hung from a bridge and the assassination of a gubernatorial candidate, a fair number of voters did turn out to cast ballots and they seem to have voted for their choices and not the cartels’.

And second, while both of the major political parties in Mexico – President Felipe Calderón’s center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled and looted Mexico for 71 years before being ousted in 2000 – initially claimed victory, it seems obvious now that the smoke has cleared that the PAN has beaten back a surge by the PRI.

This was a surprising outcome given that, just last year, the PRI racked up a number of victories in the elections for the Mexican Congress. The party that dominated Mexico for most of the 20th century seemed to be on a direct march to retaking Los Pinos, the Mexican White House, in 2012. Now, it seems, that might not be a foregone conclusion.

It’s true that the PRI won nine of the 12 governor’s races at stake in the elections, but it’s also true that those victories came in states that the party already controls. And holding ground isn’t the same as gaining ground. The PAN made inroads by winning the governorships of Puebla, Oaxaca and Sinaloa. That last victory is especially significant because Sinaloa is the home of Mexico’s illegal drug trade. In fact, the PRI’s candidate was accused by opponents of having direct ties to the cartels. He lost.

Meanwhile, because of Calderón’s brave and bloody campaign to destroy the drug trade, the PAN has become known all around Mexico as the anti-cartel party. And so any victory for the PAN is a victory for Mexico – and its partner in the drug war, the United States. In that regard, Mexico’s democracy is trending in the right direction.

This trend must continue. It would be a major setback in both the drug war and U.S.-Mexico relations for the PRI to retake the presidency in two years. The party’s pitch to voters is peace and security, which translates into a self-destructive policy of appeasing the drug cartels. The PRI would stop hassling the bad guys if the bad guys stop the murder and mayhem. There was a concern that voters would fall for that and return to power one of the most corrupt parties that Mexico has ever seen. Now there might just be a different ending to that story. Let’s hope so.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010 ... tel-trend/

I know there are alot of good people in Mexico and I hope for their sake that Mexico can be cleansed of the evil that infests many aspects of it...The Cartels being the most visibly dangerous.

I also hope they turn into a more united country with love and respect for one another rather than this predator and prey mentality that many bring with them across the border.