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| Mexican Presidential Debate: Photo: DallasNews.com |
Mexico’s July 1
presidential election presents a historic opportunity for the nation to
finally initiate the path toward the construction of effective
institutions and the rule of law. If the new president can begin his
administration with solid popular support, he will have the opportunity
to tackle the roots, rather than the symptoms, of the problems that have
led to more than 60,000 murders in six years.
The principal reason why the Mexican government has failed to defeat organized crime is a lack of political legitimacy and institutional strength at the top. Six years ago, the presidential election was grossly mismanaged, and almost half of the population concluded that sitting President Felipe Calderón did not actually receive a majority of votes. Since then, Calderón has spent most of his energy on building political support for himself, instead of spearheading the institutional transformation needed to confront Mexico´s great social and economic ills.
The recent arrests of three generals and a lieutenant colonel accused of involvement with organized crime are a case in point. These officers held top posts in the administration, and one, Tomás Angeles Dauahare, even served as the assistant defense secretary. U.S. law enforcement has had doubts about their activities for almost four years, but only now, in the heat of the presidential campaign, has Calderón decided to act. The suspicion is that the generals are being punished for swinging their support away from Calderón´s presidential candidate, Josefina Vazquez Mota, and toward Enrique Peña Nieto, the candidate from the old authoritarian Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI).
But the real scandal is not that Calderón has decided to arrest the generals, but that he refused to do so earlier. Apparently, he preferred to tolerate a few bad apples to avoid political problems with the military early on in his administration. That set a terrible example of impunity for the rest of the armed forces. If the top brass can get away with acts of high treason, it makes it almost impossible to control the rank and file...
The principal reason why the Mexican government has failed to defeat organized crime is a lack of political legitimacy and institutional strength at the top. Six years ago, the presidential election was grossly mismanaged, and almost half of the population concluded that sitting President Felipe Calderón did not actually receive a majority of votes. Since then, Calderón has spent most of his energy on building political support for himself, instead of spearheading the institutional transformation needed to confront Mexico´s great social and economic ills.
The recent arrests of three generals and a lieutenant colonel accused of involvement with organized crime are a case in point. These officers held top posts in the administration, and one, Tomás Angeles Dauahare, even served as the assistant defense secretary. U.S. law enforcement has had doubts about their activities for almost four years, but only now, in the heat of the presidential campaign, has Calderón decided to act. The suspicion is that the generals are being punished for swinging their support away from Calderón´s presidential candidate, Josefina Vazquez Mota, and toward Enrique Peña Nieto, the candidate from the old authoritarian Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI).
But the real scandal is not that Calderón has decided to arrest the generals, but that he refused to do so earlier. Apparently, he preferred to tolerate a few bad apples to avoid political problems with the military early on in his administration. That set a terrible example of impunity for the rest of the armed forces. If the top brass can get away with acts of high treason, it makes it almost impossible to control the rank and file...
FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE AVAILABLE AT DALLAS MORNING NEWS
John M. Ackerman
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