Mexico faces a political challenge of enormous dimensions. It needs a new system as the one that ruled for over a century has collapsed. The ease with which the President attacks and dismantles institutions proves that Mexican democracy is far too fragile and that the citizenry still has not managed to impose itself to exercise its rights.
He has destroyed innumerable institutional structures that hindered the concentration of power in his person and kept attacking the Supreme Court of Justice. The same could be said of the institutions related to transparency, accountability, elections, energy, trade, human rights, and the rule of law, where there has been a systematic effort to degrade and subordinate them to the President. All indicate that he wants to stay in power after his term ends in a year, so all these actions obey a deliberate strategy.
Mexico’s President has come out of the closet and is pushing for a socialist authoritarian system. Evidence of this is all over. The content change in the grammar and secondary school textbooks is full of ideological bias, glorifying kidnappers and guerrillas, sowing the seed of class struggle, and openly pro-communism. The same happens with his foreign policy; he does not conceal his admiration, affection, and support (openly and secret) for authoritarian regimes and autocrats whose nations suffer the consequences of failed models.
Every day, the president challenges the judiciary and disobeys their mandates. Also, he disqualifies the electoral apparatus and officials almost daily. Not to mention the open alliance of his party with the drug cartels. During the elections, they have been operating jointly with the official party to ensure their triumph, and even some candidates for State governorships and several mayorships are somehow associated with the cartels.
If this behavior continues, most likely, he will not concede the triumph of an opposition presidential candidate in the ballot box should it happen. Unlike the US January 6th, 2021 event, Mexican institutions must be more solid to enforce it. Unlike Trump, who could not overcome the strength and legitimacy of U.S. institutions, he stated two years ago, “Don’t argue with me that the law is the law”. To this, it must be added his enraged attack on the presiding Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and against the institution itself and its members, from Justices to Judges, and the order to the leader of the Chamber of Deputies to reduce the budget of the Judiciary for the fiscal year 2024, to such a level that it prevents its operation.
In addition to these actions, the massive propaganda to discredit and weaken the Judicial Power is remarkable. It is not a momentary outburst of rage; it is a strategy that prepares the ground to eliminate it from the decision on the legitimacy and legality of the electoral process. When the time comes, he and only he will decide who wins the election to succeed him or disqualify the process and extend his mandate to carry out another electoral process under new rules and with other electoral entities of his choice.
The Civil Society that mobilized last year to prevent the National Electoral Institute from disappearing or being taken by assault is not sufficiently organized or has a structure solid enough to confront the authoritarian acts of an empowered despot who lacks democratic principles and intellectual and moral integrity.
In addition, with the open complicity of his party with organized crime to ensure the triumph of his candidates, what can be expected in the coming months is more violence, more corruption and opacity and less transparency, more lies disguised as other data, more false accusations, more abuses and betrayals of the law, more revelations of abuses and transgressions without punishment, more attacks on the media and journalists, more polarization of society, more litigation with our neighboring partners and more solidarity and support for unpresentable dictatorships, more dark propaganda, more “disappearances” and blockades, more illegal taxes (extortion), more absence of the forces of order when they are needed, and more self-defense paramilitary groups fighting with units of organized crime better paid, trained and equipped than even local law enforcement forces, more deficiencies in public health institutions and more murders without identified and punished murderers.
And, in the electoral arena, more attacks on opponents from the top of power, more attacks (verbal and physical) on competitive candidates to persuade them to lose, more disqualifications to the electoral arbiters, more taxpayer funds flowing illegally in the campaigns of the party in power, more arbitrariness in legal reforms that favor them, more unsubstantiated accusations against opponents, just to mention a few.
The government of Mexico operates hand in hand with the two branches of organized crime:
1) the white collar that uses corporate disguise, the real powers that be (not what is commonly referred to as the ruling class, which is legitimate, but a cabal), controlling not only their industries but the Federal Government, part of the Judiciary, both chambers of Congress, States authorities, media, sports, even education. This is disguised as legal and legitimate, including sham role models with forged philanthropies funded by the taxpayers. It pretends to be socially responsible and makes use of institutional violence, extortion, and kompromat.[1] It participated in illegal operations and money laundering in his previous campaigns and hence enjoys protection against any criminal charges filed and against efforts to collect unpaid taxes. And,
2) the one that shows off physical violence, the machine-gun branch, which entails many deaths, kidnappings, human and illicit drug trafficking, extortion, and growing involvement in new areas of business and geographical territories, where the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation led by Nemesio Oceguera aka “El Mencho”, has most of the regions under its control, which together with the other cartels represent 81% of the national territory, in addition to their presence in more than 100 countries with over 45.000 elements, according to US Government sources.
Violent criminal groups nurture their ranks with young people who, in addition to having humble origins, have been exposed to television series that present drug lords as role models, handsome, rich, dressed in extravagant clothes, powerful, successful in their love affairs with beautiful and multiple women, driving fancy vehicles and flying their own airplanes, adventurous, feared and loved in their communities to which they provide facilities and equipment that local governments can’t afford. It is a combination of love and hate because, on the one hand, they are the heroes of their communities, respected and feared by the authority they normally subdue, admired for their economic success that somehow benefits the locals, and hated by those who have been dispossessed, or by those who have a loved one who has been a victim of their violence.
The violent enjoy an unrequested truce that allows them to operate freely and without consequences, stimulating their criminal activity, geographical expansion, and areas of business, as the Mexican president renounced his obligation to enforce the rule of law and, from the beginning of his administration, announced that his policy regarding the cartels was to “give them hugs instead of bullets”. Unsurprisingly, this branch of organized crime evolved from drug traffickers to manufacturers of illicit drugs, all varieties of extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking (Migrants and prostitution), retail of narcotics and stolen gasoline (Huachicol), money laundering, public and private safety, mining operation, elections, and public administration. Yes, elections and public administration, government, and political operations. They are in control of some states, and several municipal governments, police, and public works, and during the elections, operate jointly with the official party to ensure their triumph, and even some candidates for State governorships are appointed by the cartels.[2]
“…in Mexico, the Law is just an annoying hindrance, and its compliance is not mandatory”. [3]
One of the sectors where organized crime has penetrated the most, along with huachicol, is mining. As criminal organizations extend their territorial control, they not only consolidate routes for drug or human trafficking, for the installation of drug laboratories, impose prices of produces, services, or construction companies in cities and communities, and even decide how municipal and sometimes state budgets should be used and with whom, but also to occupy mines, from iron ore mines to one of the most important in the country, gold and silver. They occupy them, evict their owners and workers, try to make them produce, and then sell them when they cannot distribute the product to the market. The incredible thing is that everything is done with absolute impunity and with the complacency, or complicity, of the authorities. [4]
The illegitimate use of force by crime displaced the legitimate use of force by the State. The world’s second most powerful cartel disputes an entire State to the number one cartel on the planet. Whole towns are forced to move to other states or the United States to avoid violence, similar to what happened in Sicily, whose population emigrated en masse to Argentina and the United States, where the Mafia famously set up branches.
Just like the Italian Mafia, which, over a century, diversified its operations until it became a multinational company dedicated to murder, kidnapping, fraud, extortion, smuggling, gambling, money laundering, arms and human trafficking, drug trafficking, etc.[5] The Mexican Cartels extended operations internationally and are considered by the US Government as transnational criminal organizations operating globally, but some are considered MOCGTA (Mexican Organized Crime Groups doing Terrorist Actions). The new government that emerges from next year’s election will have to deprive organized crime of its aura of impunity and invincibility and upgrade public discussion. Today in Sicily, crime is not treated with hugs or answered with bullets; it is pursued with justice and the rule of law.
Progressively, the head of State has become more biased against US interests in areas as sensitive as migration, illicit drug manufacturing and trafficking, combat of transnational criminal organizations and terrorism, money laundering, democratic values, the rule of law, energy, trade, border security, freedom of the press, and human rights. All of this impacts, one way or the other, the safety, health, trade, and peace of United States citizens and companies, domestically and abroad.
U.S. Policy toward Mexico needs to be put on the priorities list. Not only are the economies integrated so that they are their mutual most crucial business partner, but socially and culturally, integration is overwhelming. It should not be considered an element of foreign policy but a part of the homeland agenda. It is in the best interest of the United States to have a civilized, reliable, law-abiding, friendly neighbor instead of an unreliable, primitive, violent lawbreaker whose actions put U.S. citizens and companies in constant jeopardy.
The cost of American lives in the war against Russia in Ukrainian territory is null, yet it occupies substantial attention and resources. The damage caused by the mismanagement of public policy and affairs, combined with the ineptitude and rampant corruption of the Mexican government, is costing over one hundred thousand American lives a year. The DEA Administrator stated the most lethal drug epidemic ever in history, fentanyl, is the “leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 to 45”. It deserves a closer look and policies to influence the neighbor’s policies and actions to defend democracy, Mexicans, and those at home.
The international community could and should help Mexicans correct the course and overcome the nightmare brought by the primitive regime that intends to continue driving the country backward. This international effort should help put together a set of policies to push and enable Mexico’s Citizenry to conceive, agree, and establish a new social contract, a new political system that defines and limits how the government conducts its affairs and forces the establishment of the rule of law.
[1] (Kompromat refers to materials explicitly collected to blackmail the target. It’s a Russian portmanteau of komprometiruyushchiy, “compromising,” and material, “material,” and if those Russian words look familiar, it’s because they are; they were borrowed into Russian from English)
[2] In return, the violent support the operatives of the ruling party in their campaigning efforts by chasing, intimidating, and killing opposition candidates and their supporters. They operate during the days leading up to, during, and after the elections to ensure that the votes cast and counted in the polling places favor candidates of the ruling party, either by “lifting” (kidnapping) polling officers and representatives of opposing parties the day of the election or by disappearing tally sheets and ballot boxes or altering their content.
“However, the elections were marred by being the most violent in history in terms of the number of politicians assassinated and the massive coercion and kidnappings of operatives and candidates of opposition parties, particularly where narco-criminal gangs dominate.
“Thus, Morena won all but one of the states up for grabs abutting the Pacific Ocean, with the ostensible support of organized crime, which has enormous power in that region, in what the sitting governor of the state of Michoacán called a “blatant narco election.” (https://sepgra.com/mexicos-demolition-derby-new-areas-to-obliterate/)
[3] https://sepgra.com/the-presidential-twilight/
[4] Jorge Fernández Menéndez, Excélsior, La mina de oro y plata tomada por el CJNG Julio 20, 2023
[5] Enrique Krauze, La ‘Cosa Nostra’y la nuestra, Reforma, July 9, 2023
SEPGRA Political Analysis Group
Further Reading: