Collateral Damage: Mexico's Elections

Mexico's Elections: A Bleak Panorama Statement by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, July 2, 2010.

This Sunday, July 4, Mexico will hold elections for a number of important governorships and mayoralties, .... ... this round already has been marred by gruesome violence against candidates and supporters of all parties. Many of these events...are unquestionably directly tied to drug gangs. The violence has raised well-founded fears that neither the elections nor the victories which they will yield will be insulated from the persuasive power of huge levels of narco-funds and narco-violence. Four years after President Felipe Calderón initiated his tragically ill-advised and poorly conceived attempt to defeat the drug gangs, the bitter harvest of the struggle is sure to come to light. As politics and narcotics become increasingly intertwined in Mexico, the cycle of violence will only be broken by a more sensible U.S. policy toward Mexico. Washington must reconsider its approach to domestic drug consumption, revive a long-lost commitment to social and economic development among Mexico’s lower classes, and avoid further militarizing an already sanguinary situation south of the border. Unless the U.S. takes such positive steps, the situation will invariably slide toward levels of instability, duplicating the Pakistan-Afghanistan crucible.

Mexican politics: Democracy Exhausted

Column of Sergio Aguayo
La Reforma, June 30, 2010
Original in Spanish at: Se Agotó
[Sergio Aguayo is a Professor at the Center for International Studies of the College of Mexico and an author of many books, including El Panteón de los Mitos, about the US - Mexico relationship from the 1940's to the mid 1980´s.]

The assassination of Rodolfo Torre Cantú in Tamaulipas once again confirms that the principal achievement of the transition to democracy is exhausted. What now?

Democracy is rigorous. To function properly, it requires a minimum of ecomomic and physical security. It has been ten years since there was a change of parties in the Presidency and we continue being a country of poor people and billionaires, while violence overwhelms understanding. They executed Torre Cantú. Why did they do this, or what did they want to do? We´ll never know. Instead of certainties, they will overwhelm us with versions that will serve as walls for building the chapel of Saint Impunity, stepsister of Saint Death (Santa Muerte, the saint of the narcotraffickers).

In 2000 we thought that we had arrived at the Olympus of credible elections. In 2006, we became disillusioned, and in the 2010 elections we observe with amazement how elections are controlled by a few. Let's not delude ourselves. Citizens are bit players of the big electors: the bureaucracies of the parties, governors, some businessmen and unions, organized crime. They fight so fiercely because they are betting for positions, budgets and business. There is no fairness, control over money or certainty, because the electoral bodies are subjugated or frightened. And now we see how the ballot box is the modern version of the sacrificial stone.

Everything considered, we are back at the beginning of the transition to democracy. Those opposed to the established order have three ways to proceed: take up arms, continue believing that redemption will come in some way by means of the vote, or insist on the daily defense of rights under adverse conditions. I reject violence, and in the current conditions, I will continue to annul my vote. It would be masochistic to continue to focus ourselves so much on elections when democracy is also constructed in other ways. All we have left is permanent commitment.

Let´s start rewriting history. It is false that the parties were the protagonists of the transition. They did something, of course, but society had much more prominent participation. So much so that the parties could compete at the polls after the social movements in which the parties had a marginal role. The student movement of 1968 and the Dirty War led to the reforms of 1977, and the Zapatista and civic rebellions of 1994 led to the 1996 legislation. These electoral reforms both brought the parties to prominence and enriched them, such that having the lead, they stopped worrying about gaining the authority that is granted by citizens. Up until today, the parties are a burden, not a vanguard.

Organized society is the vanguard of the future. It ought to rethink itself, renew itself and reactivate itself. Among its tasks is the identification of those who corrupt public life in many ways. Also, it needs to put pressure simultaneously on the organizations  charged with protecting rights. These organizations are the natural allies of citizens, althought at times they do whatever is possible to ignore them.

In my native Jalisco, in the city of Guadalajara, there is a member of the city council named Gamaliel Ramírez. Kicking soccer balls with an aura of celebrity has allowed him to hold various public offices through his party, PRI. By means of a swap of candidates, he now serves as city councilman for the Green Environmental Party of Mexico. Although the "Green" "Party" proclaims, in its Declaration of Principles, "respect for all manifestations of life," some days ago Gamaliel Ramírez condemned the gay pride march in Guadalajara because they marched, "out-of-sync, almost semi-naked; because we don't want a Guadalajara suffering from AIDS."

This isn't the first time that he made a homophobic statement. When looking for votes in 2009, he disqualified gays, calling them "a ball of fags," "abnormal" and "harmful things." The Institute for the Electoral Process and Citizen Participation of the State of Jalisco allowed these statements to pass, of course. Those affected were right to file a complaint with the National Council to Prevent Discrimination. Those who lead this ought to make a clear, direct pronouncement.

There are many other causes for which to fight. There will not always be justice, but it is a dignified way to endure a failed democracy while, in some spaces the conditions for the flourishing of fair and credible elections are created. Today, this way has already been exhausted.

Miscellany


I'll be in Oaxaca on the eve of the election to support the Civic Alliance in its heroic defense of fair play in the election. Collective reflection is needed and it is a way of expressing my being fed up with the abuses and cynicism of Ulises Ruiz, who has exceeded the limits of decency. Clearly, I don´t do this out of sympathy for PAN or PRD, which now wander about like "crybabies" when they were accomplices in the destruction of democratic culture.

Collaborator: Rodrigo Gonzalez Peña

Collateral Damage: Votes, tricks and bullets

[Editor´s comment: This column, about the July 4 elections in Mexico, clearly describes the challenges that the current political and civil situation in the country presents to the development of democracy in Mexico.] 

 Original Spanish version at: Votos, trampas ybalas

José Antonio Crespo

July 2, 2010

What guarantees of cleanness, safety and validity can Sunday's election offer?  What options do citizens have?

While the assassination of Rodolfo Torre is a major setback to the fragile Mexican democracy, that democracy has already been systematically stuck by the political class. Before and after the tragedy, we saw a gallery of political pettiness from all parties and many levels of government. Ten years after the first democratic change in our history, we are now facing a scenario not unlike that which prevailed 20 years ago in electoral matters. We face authentic state elections where there are no minimum guarantees of fairness, transparency and impartiality, and there is direct use of public resources in favor of parties and official candidates. There is evidence that election  officials have been under the control of various parts of the Executive Branch. This prevents there being an adequate, minimum credibility in the electoral process.

Electoral confidence vanishes because of the illegal war between political parties nakedly fighting for political booty and control of the budget above all.

On the other hand, the drug trafficker reaches the same goal with the possibility of black money in campaigns, candidates accused of links with the cartels and, even worse, the increasing level of murders by hired assassins. The stings of the agitated wasps are greater each time, and each time fewer spaces in the national house are saved from the dangerous onslaught of political weddings. In the face of the electoral violence of the narcotraffickers and with elections being held in multiple states, what guarantees of cleanliness, safety and validity can the elections of Sunday have? What options do citizens have, facing all of this?

Not long ago, the Interior Minister, Fernando Gómez Mont, predicted that, beginning this month, we would see the level of violence go down. And to encourage voter participation in such difficult conditions, he said, "The State is there to protect them, to go out and vote, to fulfill their political duties." (May 25, 2010) Reality soon took charge, contradicting the Secretary, as much in regard to the decrease in violence as in the State's ability to protect citizens. 

If the State took a hand in the abduction of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, if you cannot provide security for a presumptive governor, if you cannot care for the lives of your prisoners, if people trying to cure their drug addiction in rehabilitation centers are executed, if you cannot prevent a city like Monterrey from being strangled in its roadways by the drug traffickers, could we blame the citizens in the areas most affected by violence if they decided it is best not to take the risk? That already happened last year, as the cities hardest hit by the drug violence showed a very low rate of participation, such as Ciudad Juarez (27%), Acapulco (28%), Tijuana (29%), Nuevo Laredo Reynosa (36%), and Culiacán (37%). It may be possible that, at least in Tamaulipas the reaction of the electorate may be the opposite, to express their outrage and determination not to be swayed by organized crime by going to the polls in large numbers.

Both these reasons that impair democracy -- the lack of respect for the electoral law on the part of the parties, governors and candidates, as well as the insecurity derived from narcotrafficking -- affect the credibility of the electoral process and electoral enthusiasm. That "votes will always be more powerful than bullets" sounds fine, but those who have reduced the strength of voting have been the political class itself, rather than the drug trafficking. 

For this reason, due to the inability of the government at all levels to ensure the safety of the population and the growing rejection of the existing strategy, movements to vote "No" have emerged as a means of protest in Chihuahua. The same in Puebla, due to the unreliability of the process itself and the absence of a genuine conmmitment of the political class to the electorate.

A difficult crossroads confronts the voters next Sunday: vote for the opposition in order to move things towards a hopeful alternative, refrain for fear of bullets, cancel the vote because of lack of faith in the process or lack of conviincing alternatives, or go to the polls and vote for the party that may strengthen our increasingly fragile political institutions. It remains to be seen. 

The War on Drugs

Editor's comment: The following is excerpted from the U.S. State Department briefing of June 29, 2010, regarding the assassination of Dr. Rodolfo Torre Cantu, PRI candidate for governor in the State of Tamaulipas. It makes clear that the U.S. government is sticking by its guns, literally.


State Department Press Briefing, June 29, 2010.
Statement and questions regarding the assassination of Tamaulipas gubernatorial candidate  
MR. DUGUID: Thank you all for attending today. Welcome to the State Department. I have several announcements just before we begin. In the first, I would like to say that the United States is shocked and saddened by the brutal murders of Tamaulipas candidate Dr. Rodolfo Torre Cantu and his colleagues which occurred on June 28^th. We offer our condolences to the families and we offer our condolences to their supporters.


(after questions on other matters were addressed)
QUESTION: On Mexico, I would like to know, do you believe this is a serious setback to the efforts of Mexico and the U.S. to control the violence originated by the drug cartels? [editor's emphasis] Do you also believe this is maybe the steps that Colombia was following when they had a similar problem?

MR. DUGUID: What has happened is a tragedy and it is evidence that our fight against drug cartels and against criminal violence needs to continue, it needs to be strengthened, and we need to pursue it vigorously. The loss of any life is regretted and regrettable, but it is not a loss of our confidence that we can together as two nations defeat this violence.

QUESTION: But do you think this escalation of violence can maybe force to change the current strategy from --

MR. DUGUID: I think that in some cases, as it has been described to me, that a resulting uptick in the violence is a reaction to the success of the program. That isn’t to say that there isn’t much work to be done and certainly the protection of civilian life, innocent life, is something that programs that we share together must try and address. But I don’t see that we should change our strategy based on this particular incident. What we should (do) is strengthen and pursue our strategy vigorously.

QUESTION: Do you believe this is going to get worse before it gets better?

MR. DUGUID: I won’t speculate on where the course goes from this point.

The War on Drugs

Killing of Mexcian Governor Front-runner Stirs Concern for Democratic Process Rodolfo Torre, the front-runner in this weekend's gubernatorial election in the violence-plagued northern state of Tamaulipas, was ambushed and killed Monday. The slayings of Torre and four other people in his party underscored what analysts and officials on both sides of the border said was the pervasive influence of criminal organizations and their determination to decide who governs Mexico. ... A U.S. law enforcement intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Torre killing represented the arrival of a darker and more imminent threat to Mexico in which politicians will increasingly be targeted. June 29, 2010, Dallas Morning News


Mexico´s Meth Warriors Mexico's newest drug cartel, and certainly the most bizarre, is La Familia Michoacana, a violent but Christian fundamentalist narco-gang based in the torrid Tierra Caliente region of western Michoacan state. The group is infamous for methamphetamine smuggling, lopping off enemies' heads and limbs, and massacring police and soldiers. ... La Familia is establishing a troubling new narco-business model: It doesn't merely buy off officials, it puts its own candidates in power. "Other cartels just pay off the political structure in order to be able to do their business," says a Michoacan investigator, who estimates the group controls 83 of the state's 113 municipal governments. "La Familia is making itself the political structure." June 28, 2010, Time


The New Cocaine Cowboys NY Times OpEd by Robert  C. Bonner, senior principal of the Sentinel Group and former administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under President George H.W. Bush from 1990 to 1993 and commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. 
In the last two decades, Mexican drug cartels have acquired unprecedented power to corrupt and intimidate. Three factors account for their rise: pre-existing corruption, the inability of weak law enforcement institutions to counter them, and the demand for illegal drugs in the United States. ... The situation in Mexico today, including the violence, is similar to the one that Colombia faced 20 years ago. ... There are several lessons to be drawn from Colombia’s successful campaign.

New Focus

The U.S. and Mexico are increasingly interdependent. Three critical issues are coming to dominate this interdependence:

• The War over Drugs
• Migration and the Border
• Globalization and Politics. 

The dynamics of these issues are changing almost daily. The Americas Program believes it is crucial to stay abreast of these developments.

Therefore, The Americas  MexicoBlog will now be providing current updates of news about each of them. 

International Delegation Issues Preliminary Findings on Pre-electoral Conditions in Colombia

The following is the preliminary statement of the International Pre-electoral Observation Mission, presented Feb. 15 to the Colombian press in Bogota. The Americas Program was privileged to form part of this Mission and participate in the extensive observations that took place over a period of two weeks prior to issuing the statement. The Mission is currently working on preparing the full report, due out next week before the scheduled Mar. 14 Congressional elections in Colombia.

STATEMENT TO THE PRESS

The International Pre-Electoral Observation Mission is an effort led by Global Exchange, a U.S. non-governmental organization, with the participation of professionals, analysts and citizens of more than seven countries including the United States, Canada, Germany, the U.K. and Mexico.

The mission is made up of 22 individuals with collective experience of electoral observation in eleven countries. From Feb. 3-15, the group conducted pre-electoral observation in Colombia, prior to the 2010 elections. We divided into four teams to observe conditions in municipalities in the departments of Antioquia, Córdoba, Valle del Cauca and Santander.

The objective of the mission is to compile reports from diverse sectors that form part of the electoral process, register the concerns of civil society and assess the actions of governmental institutions. These accounts were collected within a country context where internal displacement, violence and the presence of armed actors persists.

The team carried out an intensive schedule of training, in-field observation and research from Feb. 3-14. Its members interviewed governmental authorities in charge of electoral matters--the National Electoral Council, the National Civil Registry, local Attorney Generals, officials from the regional prosecutors' offices, local and states Human Rights Ombudsmen and mayor and state governors’ offices. We also met with representatives and candidates from the political parties, political analysts, Afro-Colombian and indigenous organizations, LGBT persons, youth groups, human rights defenders, journalists, organizations of internally displaced persons, victims of human rights abuses and trade union activists.

The mission’s final report will be available on March 10 prior to Colombia’s congressional elections. The goal is for the report to serve as a catalyst for the electoral authorities and civil society to investigate and take steps to minimize the electoral risk factors found in the report prior to the conclusion of Colombia´s 2010 elections.

Our international team had the support of the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE), at the national and regional level. The MOE has carried out the important work of identifying and systematizing electoral risks since 2006. As an independent entity and working in conjunction with MOE, our purpose is to strengthen democracy and generate conditions so that citizens can fully exercise their political rights in Colombia.

The International Pre-Electoral Observation Mission would like to share some preliminary findings that came to our attention during the visits we undertook to the different regions:

1. Human Rights Violations and Electoral Risks

The protection of human rights and effective justice in cases of violations are key to ensuring that voters can fully participate in a democracy in a transparent, free and informed manner. The mission encountered much evidence of an alarming human rights situation in the country and the existence of grave violations of the rights of residents we spoke to in Antioquia, Santander, Córdoba and Valle del Cauca. Violations were attributed to both legal and illegal armed groups, and drug-traffickers. We also found that levels of violence remain high, especially among vulnerable populations including youth, women, Afro-Colombians, indigenous, internally displaced, LGBT and poor people. In addition to selective assassinations, the mission was informed by different sources that the incidence of forced disappearances has been rising, presumably to avoid inflating the national murder statistics. This violence, and subsequent impunity in many of these cases, prevents citizens from trusting the authorities and lead many voters to decide against participating in the electoral process.

In certain regions like Barrancabermeja and Buenaventura, the mission was informed that despite an increase in police and military personnel on the ground, citizens do not have an overall sense of security and the homicide rate has been rising. Youth, indigenous people and Afro-descendants face stigmatization within society and are often branded “undesirables.” This creates a context of discrimination in which crimes against these sectors are often not fully investigated or prosecuted.

In various parts of the country, civil society organizations reported that supposedly demobilized paramilitary groups continue to act against the civilian population. They noted that an open strategy exists on the part of these groups to persecute leaders of Afro-Colombians, indigenous peoples, rural farmers, trade unionists and human rights defenders and their organizations. Those interviewed reported cases of selective assassinations, extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances among the leaders of these groups.

While officials claim that the paramilitary groups have demobilized, that they no longer exist and that drug-trafficking rings have been dismantled and now represent only isolated expressions of violence, civilian groups we spoke to in the regions expressed grave concerns about these groups’ continued presence and territorial control. Citizens reported that armed criminal groups are consolidating, a perception that is shared by some officials who work on these issues and who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of possible reprisals for their statements.

Internal displacement and confinement (the inability to move freely from their territories due to restrictions imposed by the legal and illegal armed groups) are two situations that the delegations found in all regions visited. Some local authorities expressed concern about how slow the national government was in recognizing the status of many internally displaced citizens and their lack of attention to this population. In addition to the trauma of being internally displaced, many of these people faced social stigmatization and are forced to confront many institutional obstacles to their rights to protection, humanitarian assistance and access to public services. Many interviewed noted that the period granted for the internally displaced to renew I.D. cards and register to vote was too short.

2. Fear and Restriction of Freedom of Expression

Fear is widely present in all spheres of Colombian society and serves as a factor that clearly inhibits Colombia’s free voting process and the ability to have open electoral debates. Individuals interviewed reported fear of reprisals if they voted for certain candidates, fear of traveling freely in certain geographical areas and fear of carrying out opposition campaigns.

Fear also exists among critical journalists seeking to do their job and exercise their right to inform the general public. Independent journalists brought to the team’s attention the fact that they have received threats against their lives and are put under pressure when they report electoral crimes.

Freedom of the press is further constrained by the political affinities of some media with certain political parties, which causes reporters who work for those entities to self-censor. This leads to unequal coverage of the campaigns.

3. The Presence of Electoral Crimes

Participation in political campaigning by public officials, prohibited under Colombia's Law of Guarantees, is one of the top concerns expressed by the different sectors consulted. Political parties and citizens reported that some mayors, governors and council members have openly participated in campaigning for candidates. This participation allegedly goes beyond expressing their political sympathies, and the Mission heard claims that campaign workers and publicity were being paid for through public funds, including through the issuance of temporary work contracts.

All of the political parties consulted said that the “other” parties or candidates were involved in buying votes, an electoral crime defined as such the Colombian penal code. This practice is so frequent that citizens colloquially call it “tula millonaria” or TLC (Spanish initials for tiles, bricks and cement), referring to the common practice of paying voters in kind for their votes.

To check if citizens voted for the agreed-on candidate, those who commit electoral fraud use methods such as carbon paper, or cell phone or digital camera photos to verify how a ballot was marked, as well as employing a method of rotating marked ballots known as the "carrousel".

According to community leaders and beneficiaries of the social programs run by the Colombian Agency for Social Action, candidates for the House and Senate have participated in meetings where beneficiaries were informed that if they do not vote for them or for the governing party, the subsidies they receive from the president’s office will be terminated. We consider it of serious concern that there is no distinction made between the figure of the president and basic programs that are designed to attend to the needs of displaced populations and vulnerable families in the country.

4. Distance between Citizen Complaints and Actions Taken by Officials

We note that there have been advances in electoral norms and regulations that will permit the strengthening of the electoral process. However, there is a huge distance between the views of the local populations and those of the local authorities. While many people and all the political parties informed us that the practice of buying votes with cash or in kind payments is widespread, and numerous cases of voter coercion exist, local authorities state that they have not received complaints of electoral fraud.

This situation indicates that there is a rupture between the formal aspects of the society represented in Colombian institutions and the daily reality for the general public. It also shows the lack of confidence that civilians have in their authorities, which impedes official reporting of electoral crimes.

We found it troubling that many people affirmed that the main reasons for why they do not report crimes are due to fear and impunity. Democracy is not limited to elections but to the confidence that exists between citizens and their officials. This must be built on clear rules of engagement, transparency, impartiality and coherence between the mandates of the institutions and their practices.

Final Considerations

The International Pre-electoral Observation Mission considers the tradition of participation in Colombia to be very important. We noted in our observation in the different regions of the country that Colombians have a strong capacity to organize and engage in civic actions in areas of defense and promotion of human rights, participation in the planning and exercise of local budgets, implementation of community projects and collective action on a wide range of issues. However, persistent distrust of the electoral process and the lack of basic guarantees means that the work of civic education and elections monitoring is still incipient.

In this sense, the Mission considers that the work being done by various citizen groups in electoral observation forms part of political processes that seek to change corrupt practices; this requires developing a closer relationship to the citizenry and greater commitment in the exercise of power.

The Mission considers it vitally important that authorities take decisive steps against electoral crimes, in particular to pursue the continued existence of “electoral frontmen”, where questionable political organizations seek to continue to operate by changing the names of political parties or supporting candidacies of family members. While such practices are not illegal, they generate a sense of illegitimacy in the democratic process and run the risk that the Congress elected could be investigated and subject to legal proceedings that greatly affect the legitimacy and credibility of the current legislature.

The final report will include our full recommendations and observations. The mission, however, would like to preliminarily highlight the need for governmental authorities to strengthen the work of regulating, applying and monitoring electoral regulations. Authorities report a lack of resources to be able to implement their mandates. We also believe that it is urgently important that steps are taken to eliminate the possibility of fraud and coercion of voters, practices that continue to exist, according to the accounts we received.

The strengthening of democracy and the construction of electoral processes that reap the benefits of having the full confidence of the citizenry are only possible if Colombian society opens spaces for dialogue and transparency, ends impunity, and eliminates current practices of exclusion and concentration of wealth and power. The current challenges for Colombian democracy range from more effective control of the electoral process, to resolving much deeper problems in society, including the internal armed conflict, violence, intimidation, discrimination and corruption.

The mission wishes to thank all of the civil society leaders, citizens, officials and local authorities for the constant support of our activities, and the strong commitment to democracy evident in many sectors of Colombia, despite situations that jeopardize the full exercise of liberty and fundamental human rights. For all the people who maintain the hope that it is possible to bring about the changes that our societies need, we offer our solidarity. We believe, as they do, that all change requires time, as well as collective, determined action over the long term. It is this type of important work that thousands of Colombians are already undertaking in their country.

Many thanks.

International Pre-electoral Observation Mission

Bogotá, Colombia, Feb. 15, 2010.