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”).
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.
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.
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.
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’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.
Are you also aware that Albania has the most drug traffickers in Europe? They import pretty much all the heroin here.
El Salvador is doing a great job of cleaning up a way worse gang problem.
The results speak for themselves.