Great Decisions 2012 Spring Update: Mexico

Great Decisions Updates are issued seasonally and provide groups with the latest news and analysis on topics. The Spring 2012 Update is current as of May, 2012. Download the Spring 2012 Update as a PDF here.

by Leslie Huang, assistant editor


With fewer than two months until the July 1 presidential election, Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is leading in the polls. Josefina Vázquez Mota, the candidate of incumbent President Felipe Calderón’s National Action Party (PAN), is trailing distantly in second place. According to a poll by Consulta Mitofsky, published on April 24, Peña Nieto had the support of just over 40 percent, compared to Vázquez Mota’s share of 21.5 percent. Another poll, released on April 30 by the firm BGC, gave Peña Nieto 47 percent and Vázquez Mota 28 percent.
 

In April, Peña Nieto announced that, as president, he would create a new, national police force to fight the drug war. Distinct from local police, which many perceive to be infiltrated by the cartels, and from the military, which enjoys widespread respect, the new federal police force would be comprised of soldiers currently deployed against the cartels.
 

Some Mexico analysts speculate that Vázquez Mota and the PAN would gain a boost at the polls if Calderón’s government manages to capture Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, a fugitive drug lord who escaped from prison in 2001.

For the first time in 40 years, more Mexicans appear to be moving from the U.S. to Mexico rather than vice versa. A report released on April 30 by the Pew Hispanic Center indicated that the net flow of Mexicans into the U.S. was zero—or possibly negative, as a result of a sharp drop in the number of Mexicans entering the U.S. and an increase in the number of those returning to Mexico.  The net decline has also been attributed to the weak U.S. economy, stronger border regulations and declining Mexican birthrates. Deportations also appear to have played a role: there were 6.1 million undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. in 2011, compared with 7 million four years earlier.

Mexico’s lower house of Congress unanimously passed the General Victims Act, which would provide compensation to families of those killed during the drug war, on April 30. Under the bill, the government would also provide legal and medical aid to those affected by violence, build shelters for victims and create a national database of crime victims.

In March, the Organization of American States warned that drug cartels pose a threat to Latin American democracies by intimidating politicians or entering their own candidates in elections. Just days earlier, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a part of the UN, warned that drug violence has escalated to “unprecedented” levels in Central America, which has some of the highest murder rates in the world.
 

As a result, Latin American leaders are increasingly willing to consider legalizing drugs. Calderón, along with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina have all suggested that legalization of drugs could help reduce organized crime and drug violence. North America is the largest market for illegal drugs from Latin America, and President Santos and others have called upon the U.S. to discuss changes in drug policy. At the Summit of the Americas in April, however, President Obama indicated that the U.S. remains strongly opposed to drug legalization.