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”).
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.
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.
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
Who is “they”? Names, pls.
American Made
True story: Rambo was pivotal in helping the Mujahideen repel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. They would later become Al Qaeda.
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 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.
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
El Salvador is doing a great job of cleaning up a way worse gang problem.
The results speak for themselves.
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.
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!
The best thing to do would be to legalize and regulate cartel-related drugs. The cartels would not be able to compete if the war on drugs was ended, basically.
Not only would it have the effect of weakening the cartels, but it would also lead to a lot of harm reduction, because drug addicts would actually know what they are putting in their bodies.
A good example of this is Marijuana being legalized in most of the US, and its effect on the cartels. The cartels have almost completely backed out of the cannabis trade, because they can’t compete with the quality, price, and convenience of being able to buy weed legally at a store.
They need to be freedomed by the Americans.
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.
No, they certainly do not.
Yes, because that’s historically worked out super well.
It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal
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.
That’s way too much. I’d be fine with just one candidate murdered.
Trump?
Of all the places the US does aggressive intervention in, I’m always surprised they aren’t more heavily involved in Mexico.
They were and probably are. Which is why Mexico has these problems.
Not really surprising if you think about it. No oil, fierce competition from violent drug cartels that would fight back, and Mexican immigrants have been painted as an enemy for so long that there’s no sympathy for their troubles.
Basically, the US has a lot to lose & not much to gain.
Jesus.
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.
So it’s late for me and my brian autocorrect Mexico to America and I was dang but not surprised!
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?
It’s a representative democracy.
The gangs just represent the people who give them power.
This is what happens when you reward people for their wealth but never hold them accountable for how they acquire it.
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.
Must be all those guns flooding across the border from USA.
Can we do that just a little bit?
Do WHAT?
Certainly not the kidnapping or threatening.
Democracy is a threat to the human.
It’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all solution.
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.”
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.
