For Mexican voters gripped by fear, few good choices

Washington Post: Tampico, Mexico — The two Mexicos exist side by side in this steamy port city built by wildcatters and stevedores: the good, modern, more prosperous Mexico and the really bad Mexico, where gun battles break out at the local T.G.I. Friday’s and kidnapping crews roam middle-class neighborhoods, snatching teenage girls.

Voters here have their lives on the line in Mexico’s presidential election Sunday, in a city a few hours’ drive south of Texas where the municipal police were so hopelessly corrupt that they had their weapons taken away and their duties transferred to convoys of masked soldiers deployed to stem outright panic after two former mayors were abducted.

The vote, many residents say, is the worst kind of choice, between candidates and parties they don’t especially like or trust. Read more.