Mexico elections a referendum on Calderón

12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, July 4, 2009
By ALFREDO CORCHADO and LAURENCE ILIFF / The Dallas Morning News


MEXICO CITY – Mexico's midterm elections on Sunday will serve as a referendum on President Felipe Calderón's campaign against powerful drug cartels, analysts and observers say, as spasms of violence continue along the U.S. border and elsewhere.

More than 10,800 people have died in drug-related violence since Calderón took office in December 2006, and cities along the Texas border – especially Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso – have seen some of the worst carnage. More than 800 people have been killed this year alone in Juárez. Calderón has responded by sending tens of thousand of troops and federal police to Juárez and other trouble spots.

While Calderón isn't on the ballot in Sunday's elections, his standing is sure to affect the candidates for his National Action Party (PAN) in voting for 500 congressional seats, six governors and 565 mayors, analysts say.

The ongoing violence, as well as the sagging economy, may explain why the PAN has been trailing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in polls, but whatever the outcome of the elections, security is an issue that will keep Calderón relevant in the second half of his term, analysts say.

"If the PRI wins, it is an end to the president's reform agenda," said Armand Peschard-Svedrup, a Mexico expert and president of Washington-based Pechard-Sverdrup and Associates, a consulting firm. "Security will be the one issue that will prevent Calderón from becoming a lame-duck president; it's the one issue that will help Calderón remain relevant at home and engaged in a bilateral agenda with the Obama administration. It's that simple."

A poll this week in Mexico City's Reforma newspaper shows the PRI, which maintained authoritarian power from 1929 to 2000, in the lead, with 38 percent of voter preferences, virtually unchanged from the 37 percent it had in a June 17 poll but down slightly from 41 percent in one preceding that. The PAN had 33 percent this week, virtually unchanged from the two previous polls. The left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) was a distant third in the most recent poll, at 15 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

Critics, among them the PRD's Cuauhtémoc Cardenas, a former presidential candidate, accuse Calderón of using his aggressive anti-crime strategy to help his party in the elections.

PAN candidates have labeled opponents as either soft on drugs or in cahoots with thugs. Meanwhile, the arrests of elected officials – including PAN mayors – and law enforcement personnel accused of collusion with drug traffickers are splashed across newspapers and the nightly news, as are the arrests of key cartel leaders.

"The president needs to stop blaming the distant past and instead focus on his administration, because the more than 10,000 people killed under his watch didn't die from bullets of [PRI administrations]," said Alberto Islas, a commentator and security expert. "They were killed from bullets and weapons that weren't detected by Mexican customs working under his administration."

In Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, Germán Avila, a mechanic and native of the southern state of Veracruz, applauds Calderón but remains skeptical that he will prevail against the cartels.

"There are no heroes in this war," he said. "Money knows no parties or religions. The monetary temptations are too much for anyone to ignore."

A U.S. intelligence official who monitors the situation along the border also praised Calderón but said the battle against drug traffickers won't be won with campaign ads, but with the arrest of cartel leaders.

"Until the big fish fall – Chapo, Beltrán Leyva, Carrillo Fuentes, Mayo, not their kids – then I will remain skeptical," said the U.S. official, referring to Mexico's top drug traffickers, some of whose sons have been recently arrested. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, a curious movement among intellectuals and even some politicians is under way via blogs and YouTube. It's called Voto Nulo, or "blank vote." The idea is that voters will show their disgust with politicians by drawing one big "X" across the election ballot.

Daniel Franco, a university law student in Mexico City, said he plans to annul his vote because there are no political options that represent his interests, which he described as politics "with zero corruption" and where the rich and powerful are not "the only element of society who have a voice."

Some analysts have suggested that the blank vote movement could have the effect of reducing voter turnout and benefit the PRI, the party associated with Mexico's authoritarian past.

Jorge Dominguez, an expert on Latin America at Harvard University, plays down the idea that a PRI resurgence would reverse the democratic process.

"These are new times, and the PRI must and will adjust if it is to survive and remain competitive," Dominguez said. "So far, the PRI has shown to be a active yet respectful opposition party."

Steven Levitsky, also a Latin American expert at Harvard University, said that Mexico's successful elections are evidence that is far from becoming a failed state – noted as a possibility in a recent Pentagon report. Mexico is on course to becoming a "serious democracy," he said, despite a string of recent challenges, including the economic recession, swine flu outbreak and drug violence.

"Being there in Mexico and reading the newspapers every day makes you convinced that Mexico doesn't look good," Levitsky said. "but Mexico's long-term trajectory is very good."

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