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” which, by the way, are not mentioned in the article, are a bunch of 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.
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
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 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.
you’re claiming that these killings are spontaneous and only coincidentally helps the incumbents or the party leadership positions maintain authority.
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.
This isn’t normal. This doesn’t happen in other places of the world.
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.
For this to not somehow be organized or orchestrated would be completely illogical, because then it would be occurring elsewhere as well.
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.
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:
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.
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 governments 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.
I have absolutely no doubt the government is working with cartels in different regions in exchange of more control
Which government?
PAN controls 20 of the 32 state governments of Mexico and is in deep with the cartel-infested national military.
The current president –the face of the government– had been seen multiple times visiting el Chapo’s mom.
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.
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.
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?
I wish Mexico had a better system, this sort of shit is a tragedy. I don’t know how or even when this will change, but I’m hopeful it will one day in my life
If Mexico and America used the same firepower on the cartels, that they do on the middle east, cartels would be a thing of the past.
The problem is systemic. You kill one cartel, another one pops up. It’s because there’s a demand for their products. Get rid of the demand and you’ll dry up the supply. Do it in a smart way, not by destroying people’s lives which inevitably throws them back in the cartels’ hands.
I’m fine with new ones, less skilled, popping up till we kill the lot of them. It’s better than doing nothing and appeasing them.
And how would you implement such a thing? Sure, on the internet it sounds all nice and dandy, but we don’t live in lala land. How do you separate civilians from the cartel when most of these cartels exist in populated civilian areas? Do you want the military to go scorched earth on the civilian population or what? Or do you create a police state to deal with the fact that the state is too incompetent to give people actual opportunities so they don’t end up making drugs for a living?
How about you give people in Mexico proper financial opportunities so they don’t have to grow crops for drugs to feed themselves and their families? And on the other end, how about you deal with mass homelessness and poverty in the US so people don’t have to take drugs to cope with their situations? How about not incarcerating every single drug user, then throwing them on the streets after spending 5 years in prison around actual criminals, and then wondering why they go straight up back to using drugs?
These “opinions” are just armchair expert discussions. If it was that easy to deal with this shit, it would’ve been solved a long time ago.
I’ve been around long enough to know that your pie in the sky version of fixing things through social programs is NEVER going to happen. Ever. So your solution equals doing nothing. Not to mention that people are forced to grow cartel crops, it has nothing to do with programs. No social assistance is gonna counter a guy with a gun to your family.
Go to the homes of known cartel leaders and drop precision missiles right up their ass and tell me it wouldn’t be effective in ridding the world of a cartel leader. One will take his place? Sure, take him out too, they’ll replace them with even less competent leaders till they’re nothing but a street gang. Go ask el Salvador how they’ve fixed their gang problem and dropped crime by 95%. Ask them if it was hugs and social help, or brute force.
Go to the homes of known cartel leaders and drop precision missiles right up their ass
You should watch less action movies
I can assure you that there are regions within the European Union where people are even less poor and not trying anything criminal to get rich. I’m referring to parts of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and southern Italy.
Not to mention Third-Party-Members like Albania, Moldovia, Bosnia or Macedonia who are partially Third-World-Nations.
You won’t find poppy plants there. And while there is some organized crime - surely more than north of these countries - they are more or less under control and operate in the shadows.
But then the EU is also relaxed about giving work visas. Lots of people from those nations do some seasonal work within the EU, earning good money. We have all sorts of Ukrainians, Albaniens and even Tunesiens around Germany doing such jobs. Usually they earn enough money within two years to return home and start a family and a business.
I can assure you that there are regions within the European Union where people are even less poor and not trying anything criminal to get rich. I’m referring to parts of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and southern Italy.
I’m Romanian. I’ve also been to Mexico. I highly suspect that you have no clue what you’re talking about. The poverty in Mexico is a lot worse than in any part of Romania. Besides that, being poor in Romania means getting a job 50km away from your village, in the next city at most. Jobs are fairly easily accessible.
Not to mention Third-Party-Members like Albania
Are you also aware that Albania has the most drug traffickers in Europe? They import pretty much all the heroin here.
If you are living in Romania you might also remember how life was there 20-50 years ago. The stories my buddy told me about his time over there are… wow. The story how his Grandpa as a major of a small village during communism stole enough money from the communist party until he could bribe his way to the West - and actually nobody minded him stealing like 90% of all money going to his village… In the late 1990ths my buddy was robbed at gun point twice. By Highway-Police. When he invited his Uncle to a good restaurant in the capital the simple farmer didn’t dare to step through the door because “I am not worthy”… Nowadays… it is a lot more relaxed. Not perfect but the really big shit is gone. Still he thinks most Romanian youngsters are kinda crazy but most Europeans are, just in a different way. And the tourist regions are actually quite nice.
The Albanian Government ist pretty well aware of their lack of control and gave full control over shipping lanes to FRONTEX around ten years ago.
That by the way is the main reason nowadays drugs mostly arrive in Rotterdam again. Easier to hide between millions of metric tons of cargo than in a single fishing boat.
El Salvador is doing a great job of cleaning up a way worse gang problem.
The results speak for themselves.
I bet it isn’t all sunshine and roses but hasn’t El Salvador quite a bit of success by going absolutely crazy against the cartels?
Well, last time I checked El Salvador was 93 times smaller than Mexico. Besides that, the cartels are part of the civilian population, hiding in civilian dense areas. Do you really recommend Mexico going scorched earth on their own people or what? Are you also aware of the dire human rights violations in El Salvador? When all you’ve got is a hammer everything starts looking like a nail.
Do you really recommend Mexico going scorched earth on their own people or what? Are you also aware of the dire human rights violations in El Salvador?
Unfortunately, that’s what’s necessary when you let your nation be run by gangbangers.
There is no perfect solution when things get this bad. At some point, they’ll have to ask themselves if it’s preferable to live under gang members who rape their children as intimidation, or take a more heavy-handed approach like El Salvador so they don’t have to live in fear.
Results speak louder than any ideology. Right now, El Salvador’s results are something Mexico should be learning from.
I don’t think they will, though.
Unfortunately, that’s what’s necessary when you let your nation be run by gangbangers.
Oh, how nice that you’re okay with killing innocents from another nation in the process because your country is drug thirsty and can’t get its shit together.
They don’t want to get rid of the cartels. The DEA has a vested interest in staying relevant, as it’s part of the whole law enforcement industrial complex. Hell, one of the deadliest cartels’ soldiers were previously trained by American special forces back in the day ( https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2010/11/3/us-trained-cartel-terrorises-mexico ). Guess who trained Taliban? You got it, the US. Who trained many of the guerrillas that would turn into tyrants in South America? Correctomondo, the US once again. We love to destabilize regions for corporate interests.
Who is “they”? Names, pls.
American Made
Not just the DEA, we’ve built a whole economy around drug offenses staying illegal. Drug testing companies, technology firms that develop law enforcement gear, law enforcement seminars, to say nothing of the thousands of companies that profit off of prison labor for what is effectively free, and the fact that a lot of the nonviolent offenders wind up turning violent because nobody will hire or rent to someone with a drug conviction.
we even have dowsing rods for cops
True story: Rambo was pivotal in helping the Mujahideen repel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. They would later become Al Qaeda.
Yes just like Al Qaeda and the Taliban…
We’ve tried that under previous administrations. Doesn’t work. Lending Mexico a hand is just playing whack-a-mole so long as the conditions for the cartels (including the massive corruption in government, police, and military) remain.
The best thing the US can do for Mexico is reduce demand for cartel products domestically.
Weeding out FARC and Shining Path actually did teach valuable lessons which habe been repeatedly reapplied successfully during modern counter-terrorism.
Both where heavily invested in organized crime but are nowadays toothless or non-existant due to coordinated goverment and civilian efforts.
The Best example might be “The Sons of Iraq” who helped to pacify Iraq quite well. The Coalition literally hired local people suffering most from extremists to fight the extremists and it worked like a charm. FARC and Shining Path were pushed into insignificance by roughly the same methods.
Yes, there were “revenge” killings by the “somewhat good guys” against the “really bad guys”. But in hindsight it was necessary to show the “really bad guys” that the tables had turned. As long as the overall violence decreases - deal with it.
Oh, by the way, did you know that the Mafia once was an organized military organization fighting for Sicilian independence? Over the last 200 years they slowly degraded into a bunch of sometimes wealthy oligarchic stock market fraudsters, but mostly pick pockets and low level fraudsters, at most bribing officials for construction jobs, if at all. 40 years ago they killed judges and police officers in the dozen. Nowadays they get beat up if they show up in Palermos shops and demanding the Pizzo (protection money). And the police stands by and collects the beaten gangster afterwards without minding the locals doing local justice. Works fine.
best thing the US can do for Mexico is reduce demand
Ya, how? Amuricans luv them some coke!
They need to be freedomed by the Americans.
No, we don’t. We will resist these attempts, actively and passively.
It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal
No, they certainly do not.
Tell that to the victims of the gangbangers.
Yes, because that’s historically worked out super well.
Being freedomed by the Americans is what leads a ton of countries to being like this.
I don’t know, Japan got freedomed pretty hard in 1945.
Japan, while being no stranger to political assassinations, was nowhere near as bad as the state Mexico’s in.
They could try take El Salvador’s approach.
It’s quite a world we live in where Mexico is becoming the new El Salvador.
It is changing. Not as fast as almost every Mexican would want it to, but it is clearly changing for good if you take a look at the numbers.
I hope so! I’d love to really explore the heart of Mexico, but the cartels worry me.
There are a lot of places that are safe to visit, but you should be careful of some specific locations. The government publishes daily statistics about homicides, from there, you can have a pretty good idea of where not to go. Still, if things keep getting better, in a couple of years, things will become manageable for local governments. The current annual rate of homicides for every 100,000 habitants is down to 2011 levels. It’s still very high, but it’s not as high as the 2015-2021 streak.
I hope it keeps falling and coming under control. Mexico is such a wonderful place from everything I’ve seen.
I don’t believe you.
Cool. The data is out there.
Yeah. Looks like they’re heading towards their “most violent election ever.”
So it’s late for me and my brian autocorrect Mexico to America and I was dang but not surprised!
And that’s not all. If I may be permitted a moment of sarcasm. Imagine all the funerals and all the walking…from the funeral home to the church and from there to the Pantheon. And all the singing. Specially from the church to their final resting place…“desdel Cielo una enorme tostada! Desdel Cielo una enorme tostada! Yera de Tijuana, yera de Tijuana, yera de Tijuana so nombre y su faz!” And it’s not that I don’t enjoy the classics, but you know your cousin’s sister’s friend’s grand aunt with one working eye is coming specifically to sing it. She’s walking at the end of the precession but you can hear that voice piercing through your soul at the front. You probably wanna jump in the casket if they let you. And it never ends! Some one right now is still writing that darn song! “Con mi chankla en el culo le dabaaaa, con mi chankla en el culo le dabaaaa! Mira con mi tabla! Mira con mi tabla ye voy a pagar! Mira con mi tabla…” Maybe just maybe that song could have been local and I just gave away my origin story. I don’t know. It’s possible I suppose.
Eres de Mexico? Yo me pregunto si los titulares son mas amarillistes o esta tan dificl? He escuchado de las 2 versiones no se que pensar.
Era de aya. Ahora no soy de ningun lado. Me presento simplemente come una persona.
That’s way too much. I’d be fine with just one candidate murdered.
Trump?
So this it to anyone out there who thinks this idea would work in America - no, this would be a TERRIBLE idea.
Because if we have people going all over the country just murdering politicians. We’d be seeing people murder those people that murdered those politicians because we have a strong team-based mentality here.
Should be recalled that Trump supporters attempted to run Joe Biden’s campaign bus off the road during her visit to Texas. This resulted in Democrats cancelling three events in the Lone Star State.
And don’t forget Gabby Giffords, an Arizona Congresswoman who was shot in the head by a mentally handicapped man who’d been juiced up on pro-gun rhetoric and unleashed on the crowd.
Finally, I’m forced to remind you of the NYPD disappearing BLM activists for days at a time during the COVID lockdown. Activists were forced into densely populated prison cells after being stripped of masks and other protective clothing. This, alongside mysterious deaths of Ferguson activists in the weeks following the 2014 marches. The police response to the Black Lives movement is strongly reminiscent of the current campus police response to Palestinian peace activists.
I should note that the Mexican Center-Right party PAN is currently whipping support among Mexican expat voters in an effort to oust ALMO and replace him with a reactionary more in line with Trumpian Foreign Policy goals south of the border.
Not that there would be any overlap between violence in a Latin American nation and American political reactionary activity, of course. No history of that ever occurring.
Not really a democracy at this point, is it?
The question is- is it more or less of a democracy then when it was a one-party state for most of the 20th century?
Can we do that just a little bit?
Do WHAT?
Certainly not the kidnapping or threatening.
Jesus Christ can you stop spamming elpais news?
OP sending 3 El Pais links across a 5 day period isn’t spamming, and they are a legitimate news source.
They’re not a legitimate source. And they’re right winged…
How are they not legitimate? Put up or shut up.
They are not right wing and they are a legitimate source:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/el-pais/
“Overall, we rate El Pais Left-Center biased based on story selection and editorial positions that slightly favor the left. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact-check record.”
Must be all those guns flooding across the border from USA.
Being reported due to being from El Pais, but they have a VERY high credibility rating:
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/el-pais/
Not sure what the beef is here, someone mind explaining?
The answer is racism.
Against whom? I’m not being facetious, I am just uninformed to the motivation.
I have no idea about the back story here but being mexican, there racism against indigenous Mexicans, and darker skin mixed Mexicans. Mexicans that are light skinned are seen in a better light by our own people.
That’s not uncommon for non white populations (groups?) I’ve read the same thing about Japanese people, Chinese and Indian people. Darker skin people are subjected to more discrimination than their lighter skinned countrymen.
Had a young adult local Egyptian explain this to me, even with their already colored skin, darker people among their own experienced more racism. Nature is amazing.
Jesus.
I checked the wikipedia list and Jesus is just about the only candidate name that hasn’t been murdered.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_politicians_killed_during_Mexican_elections
No point in murdering Jesus. Three days later he comes back and starts campaigning again.
And potentially hunt you down and try and make you eat some of his flesh to prove you failed.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=FNxgYot0S6Q
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
So did they at least catch the guy? I mean a knife doesn’t make you run faster so I assume he got caught?
You clearly have never played counter strike.
Police should have an easier time tho, taser movement speed got buffed.
I’m constantly reminded of that one Ad Campaign for some kind of alcoholic beverage where they offered to fund the next revolution or civil war or something. I can’t find anything about it online anymore, sadly.
I’m starting to think that maybe the same advertisement wouldn’t be so controversial if it happened today.
Democracy is a treat to the human.
