PieFedMexico is heading towards its most violent election ever, with 30 candidates murdered, 77 threatened and 11 kidnapped
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english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-27/mex…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We all should hope for that. It's a bit weird for me that media keeps repeating that things just don't change or are even worse. This April was bad, it was a month so violent as we haven't seen in two years. I really hope this doesn't start a trend.
I don't believe you.
Cool. The data is out there.
Yeah. Looks like they're heading towards their "most violent election ever."
Oh, I was talking about violence in general. I guess we will see if this is the most violent election ever, but we should take into account the relative number of candidates, which is no doubt a factor here. It's really a great thing that the media finally piqued some interest on this topic. Let's hope it's not only because they have a financial interest on it.
They could try take El Salvador's approach.
It's quite a world we live in where Mexico is becoming the new El Salvador.
They need to be freedomed by the Americans.
No, they certainly do not.
Tell that to the victims of the gangbangers.
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.
Yes, because that's historically worked out super well.
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
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.
Sounds familiar:
https://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76rblackperspective.phtml
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.
As a mexican living in Mexico, the struggle is real. What is not real is the OP in bold letters. The so called "specialists" are usually a bunch of so-called 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
It should be easy for you to show any evidence of AMLO having dinner with her when she was alive. Please post your evidence.
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 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:
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 administrations 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.
Which government?
PAN controls 20 of the 32 state governments of Mexico and is in deep with the cartel-infested national military.
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.
Read the immediate next sentence of the one you’re quoting me. But to be more direct: about ~95% of the gov? So, PAN, PRI, and Morena.
Illustrate me with some reliable sources then. I don’t see any “direction” those sources you mention have taken, what do you mean?
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?
Sí es una locura. Son cosas que no deberían pasar. En 1994, incluso asesinaron a un candidato presidencial. Siempre se ha asumido que la motivación fue política en ese caso, pero nunca fue realmente resuelto, todo mundo aquí cree que se usó un chivo expiatorio y nadie piensa que el mismo individuo fue autor intelectual.
Pero no es el único caso, en el pasado también se ha asesinado a candidatos, claros favoritos a ser gobernadores de un estado. Los más vulnerables son los candidatos a presidir municipios y existen mecanismos para su protección que a veces no se aplican con suficiente rapidez o fuerza. Las víctimas son de todo el espectro político, a los carteles no les importa la ideología, sólo el poder. Los estados más afectados también son de todo el espectro político, por ahora.
En cuanto a la violencia en general, creo que la gente de fuera de México, que no está tan influida por los medios de comunicación locales y con suficiente educación para leer gráficas, encontrará interesante este estudio de INEGI, que aunque no contiene los datos más recientes, sí son los más precisos sobre homicidios dolosos.
EDIT: Este mes de abril ha sido particularmente violento en México. No teníamos un mes tan violento desde 2022 y espero que no sea el mes que inicie una tendencia al alza de homicidios dolosos.
Es una barbaridad y algo que no debería pasar. No, no existe una tendencia en ese sentido, hay víctimas en todo el espectro político y en estados gobernados por partidos de todas las ideologías. Si lo que te esperas es que el partido en el gobierno tenga menos víctimas por sus supuestos vínculos con el narcotráfico, es completamente al revés: es el partido que hasta hace un par de semanas tenia mas víctimas. También es algo dirigido, pues la tasa de estos homicidios es mucho mayor a la nacional. Existen mecanismos de protección para los candidatos que a veces se activan torpemente o no se activan en absoluto a pesar de ser pedidos, asumo que sí hay casos en los que funcionan esos mecanismos de protección. Casi todas las víctimas son del nivel municipal, que es más vulnerable a la corrupción de los carteles por asimetría de poder.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FNxgYot0S6Q
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That’s way too much. I’d be fine with just one candidate murdered.
Trump?
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.
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 it's late for me and my brian autocorrect Mexico to America and I was dang but not surprised!
Must be all those guns flooding across the border from USA.
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.
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.
Can we do that just a little bit?
Do WHAT?
Certainly not the kidnapping or threatening.
B-b-b-but El Salvador is a DICTATORSHIP!
-clueless westerners
Isn't the article about Mexico?
El Salvador is south of the Rio Grande, which makes it part of Mexico
I think you are being sarcastic here, by that logic, Antarctica is also Mexico.
You mean South Mexico.