http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centreda ... 923948.htm

Posted on Tue, Feb. 21, 2006

Drug trafficking weighs on Mexicans

BY LAURENCE ILIFF
The Dallas Morning News

MEXICO CITY - Almost all Mexican voters regard drug trafficking and spreading narco-violence as serious problems going into the presidential election this summer, and they say authorities are doing little or nothing to combat them, according to a new poll.

Concerns about the drug war have jumped dramatically since a similar survey of Mexicans in the last presidential race six years ago. Now, as the fighting among rival drug dealers moves south from the Mexico-U.S. border into the heartland, voters from Ciudad Juarez to Cancun say they are becoming more worried.

Pollsters say outrage over the drug cartels - some believed to have operatives in North Texas - offers a potential political opening for Mexican presidential candidates to reach voters who want a strong response to the violence that has shaken their confidence in the government's ability to protect them.

"The number of people saying this is a serious or very serious problem really jumps out," said Carlos Ordonez, coordinator of the poll for The Dallas Morning News, Al Dia and the Mexican newspaper El Universal. "The candidates have talked about insecurity, but they have failed to offer concrete proposals, and that's what the voters want."

The nationwide survey - the most extensive look at Mexicans' views about the drug war since the presidential race began in earnest about two months ago - was conducted amid heavy media attention on recent violence, including a shootout between police and suspected cartel enforcers in Acapulco, a commando-style attack on the Nuevo Laredo newspaper El Manana, and the assassination of two city police chiefs in the northern state of Nuevo Leon. More than 90 percent of registered voters surveyed say drug trafficking is a major problem and is moving into other parts of the country from border cities such as Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, both across from Texas.

Javier Ibarrola, a columnist on security issues for the news magazine Milenio, said the drug-related battles, along with increasing drug use within Mexico and greater media focus on the issue, have Mexicans more fearful of organized crime.

"This wave of violence is very new," he said. "Before, there was a killing here, a killing there, but it didn't really get the media's attention. I think now it's an issue that generates a lot of tension."

In a sign of frustration, voters told pollsters they have little faith in government to respond effectively.

Two-thirds of those questioned said neither the federal government nor the state government - or their respective police forces - are doing much to confront the drug dealers. And 72 percent said Mexican judges are doing little or nothing to resolve the problem.

In an interview last week in Dallas, Geronimo Gutierrez, undersecretary for North America in Mexico's Foreign Ministry, said local and federal authorities on the border are underpaid and underequipped in dealing with the cartels. But, he said, the Mexican government is taking steps to eliminate the temptation of corruption and to improve intelligence gathering and the judicial system.

"The worst thing that can happen is that there is a sense of impunity," he said.

The polling unit for El Universal, a Mexico City newspaper, conducted 1,000 in-person interviews with registered voters Feb. 10-13. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

Although still not as crucial to voters as the economy, the drug war could become a more important issue in July's presidential election, said Daniel Lund, head of MUND Americas, which conducted a similar survey in 2000 for The Dallas Morning News.

In that survey, just 4 percent cited "controlling the power of drug traffickers" as the principal issue that would affect their vote. The presidential winner, Vicente Fox, campaigned on jobs and the economy, democracy, freedom of speech and cutting an immigration deal with the United States.

"All the candidates are going to seize on" narco-trafficking, Lund said. But, he predicted, they all will propose the same solution: "an expanded role for the military" because, he said, it is the one government institution that is not considered deeply corrupt.

The poll appears to reflect that: Voters credit the military for doing a better job in the fight against drug dealers than police and state and federal governments.

The leading presidential candidates have tiptoed around the issue, but that may change quickly, analysts said.

Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, has incorporated the phrase "a firm hand" into his campaign slogan.

The front-runner, former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, has focused on social issues, such as pensions for the elderly, scholarships for poor children and the fight against poverty.

The other major contender, Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is battling allegations of corruption and influence peddling by top party politicians.

Pollster Francisco Abundis Luna said the narco-violence tends to come and go in voters' minds. "It's a tricky issue; it depends on the moment," said Abundis, associate director of the Mexico City polling firm Parametria.

Manuel Barberena, president of the Pearson opinion research company, said he expects that Mexican politicians soon will propose more specific actions to curb the violence. It hasn't happened yet, he said, but "there will be a point where the narco-trafficking will be so out of control that it becomes a big issue."

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BORDER WORRIES

From Mexican voters, in a poll for The Dallas Morning News, Al Dia and El Universal:

93 percent say drug trafficking is a serious problem in Mexico, spreading from border cities to other parts of the country.

81 percent say the United States contributes to the drug-trafficking problems.

64 percent say Mexican federal police have done little or nothing to help.

Mexico City newspaper El Universal's polling unit interviewed 1,000 registered voters Feb. 10-13. Margin of error: plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.