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By Scott Stewart, Stratfor

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s approach to combating Mexican drug cartels has been a much-discussed topic since well before he was elected. Indeed, in June 2011 — more than a year before the July 2012 Mexican presidential election — I wrote an analysis discussing rumors that, if elected, Peña Nieto was going to attempt to reach some sort of accommodation with Mexico’s drug cartels in order to bring down the level of violence.

Such rumors were certainly understandable, given the arrangement that had existed for many years between some senior members of Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party and some powerful cartel figures during the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s long reign in Mexico prior to the election of Vicente Fox of the National Action Party in 2000. However, as we argued in 2011 and repeated in March 2013, much has changed in Mexico since 2000, and the new reality in Mexico means that it would be impossible for the Pena Nieto administration to reach any sort of deal with the cartels even if it made an attempt.

But the rumors of the Peña Nieto government reaching an accommodation with some cartel figures such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera have persisted, even as the Mexican government arrests key operatives in Guzman’s network, such as Ines Coronel Barreras, Guzman’s father-in-law, who was arrested May 1 in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Indeed, on April 27, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest published a detailed article outlining how U.S. authorities were fearful that the Mexican government was restructuring its security relationship with the U.S. government so that it could more easily reach an unofficial truce with cartel leaders. Yet four days later, Coronel — a significant cartel figure — was arrested in a joint operation between the Mexicans and Americans.

Clearly, there is some confusion on the U.S. side about the approach the Peññna Nieto government is taking, but conversations with both U.S. and Mexican officials reveal that these changes in Mexico’s approach do not appear to be as drastic as some have feared. There will need to be adjustments on both sides of the border while organizational changes are underway in Mexico, but this does not mean that bilateral U.S.-Mexico cooperation will decline in the long term.

Opportunities and Challenges

Despite the violence that has wracked Mexico over the past decade, the Mexican economy is booming. Arguably, the economy would be doing even better if potential investors were not concerned about cartel violence and street crime — and if such criminal activity did not have such a significant impact on businesses operating in Mexico.

Because of this, the Pena Nieto administration believes that it is critical to reduce the overall level of violence in the country. Essentially it wants to transform the cartel issue into a law enforcement problem, something handled by the Interior Ministry and the national police, rather than a national security problem handled by the Mexican military and the Center for Research and National Security (Mexico’s national-level intelligence agency). In many ways the Pena Nieto administration wants to follow the model of the government of Colombia, which has never been able to stop trafficking in its territory but was able to defeat the powerful Medellin and Cali cartels and relegate their successor organizations to a law enforcement problem.

The Mexicans also believe that if they can attenuate cartel violence, they will be able to free up law enforcement forces to tackle common crime instead of focusing nearly all their resources on containing the cartel wars.

Although the cartels have not yet been taken down to the point of being a law enforcement problem, the Pena Nieto administration wants to continue to signal this shift in approach by moving the focus of its efforts against the cartels to the Interior Ministry. Unlike former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who was seen leading the charge against the cartels during his administration, Pena Nieto wants to maintain some distance from the struggle against the cartels (at least publicly). Pena Nieto seeks to portray the cartels as a secondary issue that does not demand his personal leadership and attention. He can then publicly focus his efforts on issues he deems critically important to Mexico’s future, like education reform, banking reform, energy reform and fostering the Mexican economy. This is the most significant difference between the Calderon and Pena Nieto administrations.

Of course it is one thing to say that the cartels have become a secondary issue, and it is quite another to make it happen. The Mexican government still faces some real challenges in reducing the threat posed by the cartels. However, it is becoming clear that the Pena Nieto administration seeks to implement a holistic approach in an attempt to address the problems at the root of the violence that in some ways is quite reminiscent of counterinsurgency policy. The Mexicans view these underlying economic, cultural and sociological problems as issues that cannot be solved with force alone.

Mexican officials in the current government say that the approach the Calderon administration took to fighting the cartels was wrong in that it sought to solve the problem of cartel violence by simply killing or arresting cartel figures. They claim that Calderon’s approach did nothing to treat the underlying causes of the violence and that the cartels were able to recruit gunmen faster than the government could kill or capture them. (In some ways this is parallel to the U.S. government’s approach in Yemen, where increases in missile strikes from unmanned aerial vehicles have increased, rather than reduced, the number of jihadists there.) In Mexico, when the cartels experienced trouble in recruiting enough gunmen, they were able to readily import them from Central America.

However — and this is very significant — this holistic approach does not mean that the Pena Nieto administration wants to totally abandon kinetic operations against the cartels. An important pillar of any counterinsurgency campaign is providing security for the population. But rather than provoke random firefights with cartel gunmen by sending military patrols into cartel hot spots, the Pena Nieto team wants to be more targeted and intentional in its application of force. It seeks to take out the networks that hire and supply the gunmen, not just the gunmen themselves, and this will require all the tools in its counternarcotics portfolio — not only force, but also things like intelligence, financial action (to target cartel finances), public health, institution building and anti-corruption efforts.

The theory is that by providing security, stability and economic opportunity the government can undercut the cartels’ ability to recruit youth who currently see little other options in life but to join the cartels.

To truly succeed, especially in the most lawless areas, the Mexican government is going to have to begin to build institutions — and public trust in those institutions — from the ground up. The officials we have talked to hold Juarez up as an example they hope to follow in other locations, though they say they learned a lot of lessons in Juarez that will allow them to streamline their efforts elsewhere. Obviously, before they can begin building, they recognize that they will have to seize, consolidate and hold territory, and this is the role they envision for the newly created gendarmerie, or paramilitary police.

The gendarmerie is important to this rebuilding effort because the military is incapable of serving in an investigative law enforcement role. They are deployed to pursue active shooters and target members of the cartels, but much of the crime affecting Mexico’s citizens and companies falls outside the military’s purview. The military also has a tendency to be heavy-handed, and reports of human rights abuses are quite common. Transforming from a national security to a law enforcement approach requires the formation of an effective police force that is able to conduct community policing while pursuing car thieves, extortionists, kidnappers and street gangs in addition to cartel gunmen.

Certainly the U.S. government was very involved in the Calderon administration’s kinetic approach to the cartel problem, as shown by the very heavy collaboration between the two governments. The collaboration was so heavy, in fact, that some incoming Pena Nieto administration figures were shocked by how integrated the Americans had become. The U.S. officials who told Dana Priest they were uncomfortable with the new Mexican government’s approach to cartel violence were undoubtedly among those deeply involved in this process — perhaps so deeply involved that they could not recognize that in the big picture, their approach was failing to reduce the violence in Mexico. Indeed, from the Mexican perspective, the U.S. efforts have been focused on reducing the flow of narcotics into the United States regardless of the impact of those efforts on Mexico’s security environment.

However, as seen by the May 1 arrest of Coronel, which a Mexican official described as a classic joint operation involving the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexican Federal Police, the Mexican authorities do intend to continue to work very closely with their American counterparts. But that cooperation must occur within the new framework established for the anti-cartel efforts. That means that plans for cooperation must be presented through the Mexican Interior Ministry so that the efforts can be centrally coordinated. Much of the current peer-to-peer cooperation can continue, but within that structure.

Consolidation and Coordination

As in the United States, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Mexico have terrible problems with coordination and information sharing. The current administration is attempting to correct this by centralizing the anti-cartel efforts at the federal level and by creating coordination centers to oversee operations in the various regions. These regional centers will collect information at the state and regional level and send it up to the national center. However, one huge factor inhibiting information sharing in Mexico — and between the Americans and Mexicans — is the longstanding problem of corruption in the Mexican government. In the past, drug czars, senior police officials and very senior politicians have been accused of being on cartel payrolls. This makes trust critical, and lack of trust has caused some Mexican and most American agencies to restrict the sharing of intelligence to only select, trusted contacts. Centralizing coordination will interfere with this selective information flow in the short term, and it is going to take time for this new coordination effort to earn the trust of both Mexican and American agencies. There remains fear that consolidation will also centralize corruption and make it easier for the cartels to gather intelligence.

Another attempt at command control and coordination is in the Pena Nieto administration’s current efforts to implement police consolidation at the state level. While corruption has reached into all levels of the Mexican government, it is unquestionably the most pervasive at the municipal level, and in past government operations entire municipal police departments have been fired for corruption. The idea is that if all police were brought under a unified state command, called “Mando Unico” in Spanish, the police would be better screened, trained and paid and therefore the force would be more professional.

This concept of police consolidation at the state level is not a new idea; indeed, Calderon sought to do so under his administration, but it appears that Pena Nieto might have the political capital to make this happen, along with some other changes that Calderon wanted to implement but could not quite pull off. To date, Pena Nieto has had a great deal of success in garnering political support for his proposals, but the establishment of Mando Unico in each of Mexico’s 31 states may perhaps be the toughest political struggle he has faced yet. If realized, Mando Unico will be an important step — but only one step — in the long process of institution building for the police at the state level.

Aside from the political struggles, the Mexican government still faces very real challenges on the streets as it attempts to quell violence, reassert control over lawless areas and gain the trust of the public. The holistic plan laid out by the Pena Nieto administration sounds good on paper, but it will still require a great deal of leadership by Pena Nieto and his team to bring Mexico through the challenges it faces. They will obviously need to cooperate with the United States to succeed, but it has become clear that this cooperation will need to be on Mexico’s terms and in accordance with the administration’s new, holistic approach. 

This article was first published in Stratfor.

Scott Stewart supervises the day-to-day operations of Stratfor’s intelligence team and plays a central role in coordinating the company’s analytical process with its business goals. Before joining Stratfor, he was a special agent with the U.S. State Department for 10 years and was involved in hundreds of terrorism investigations.

[Photo by  United States Government Work]

By Fox News Latino

Just days before President Barack Obama’s visit south of the border, the Mexican government announced it will end the widespread access it has given U.S. security agencies to combat the drug war.

It could signal a potential dramatic shift in relations between the neighboring countries.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is seeking to change his administration’s focus from violence to the country’s emerging economy, which is due to take over Brazil as the strongest in Latin America.

Click on the picture to read the full story.

[Photo courtesy Fox News Latino]

By Antonio Garza, Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico

This week’s meeting between Presidents Obama and Peña Nieto brings U.S.-Mexico relations to center stage. This second face-to-face between the two leaders occurs at a critical time in each presidency. Domestic reform efforts that have far-reaching implications for the bilateral agenda are underway in both countries. These include immigration reform in the U.S. and reforms to boost economic competitiveness in Mexico.

Recent efforts to broaden the discourse on U.S.-Mexico relations have been largely successful-and overdue. Nevertheless, security remains the focal point for many citizens of both countries.

Peña Nieto campaigned on promises of a recalibrated strategy on security and the Mexican public has been patient in granting his administration time to develop its approach. But there are risks in the pace his team seems to have adopted, including mounting skepticism-at home and to some extent in the U.S.-that the issue has not been given the priority it deserves.

Now near the 150^-day mark of his six-year term, Peña Nieto has pushed through a number of long-awaited reforms-to labor, education and telecommunications-and is readying other, thornier ones for action. His efforts have been widely praised and his popularity is high, but passing the reforms is just the opening act. Implementation is crucial.

The foundation for the administration’s ambitious reform drive has been the Pact for Mexico, an historic agreement Peña Nieto and the leaders of the two main opposition parties signed the day after the new PRI president took office. A few days ago the administration was forced to temporarily suspend all activities related to the Pact, including a planned announcement of financial reforms.

The crisis was provoked by the opposition’s discovery that the PRI was using public funds to finance party-run programs-and thereby gain political advantage-ahead of local elections in July. The dispute has exposed the inherent political tensions and consequent limitations of the Pact.

Though the parties may be able to resolve the immediate controversy, many see signs that the alliance is fraying and expect negotiations for remaining initiatives on the 95-item reform agenda to be more problematic.

President Obama will be able to sympathize with his Mexican counterpart on this score. Over four years and 100-days into his second term he has become well acquainted with difficult negotiations. Like other two-term presidents, he may soon look to foreign affairs to burnish his legacy and his visit to Mexico offers a rare opportunity to promote goals in both the domestic and foreign policy arenas.

President Obama will emphasize the need to continue to effect close security cooperation and coordination. He will also seek to positively frame the immigration reform debate, which is just getting underway in the U.S. Senate and is expected to continue for the remainder of the year.

The visit to Mexico affords the chance to highlight the successful and interconnected economic partnership the countries share and to make the case for immigration reform as essential to North America’s economic security. And in many respects President Peña Nieto will have the opportunity to do the same.

The U.S.-Mexico economic partnership is thriving. Mexico is the U.S.’s second largest export market and third leading source of imports. Bilateral trade reached nearly one-half trillion dollars in 2012, roughly $1.4 billion each day. An estimated six million U.S. jobs depend on trade with Mexico and 40 percent of every product the U.S. imports from Mexico is really “Made in America.”

As strong as the bilateral relationship is now, however, it must deepen and evolve in order to ensure expanded opportunity and security for both countries going forward. Presidents Peña Nieto and Obama have both entered a post-honeymoon environment that demands hard work and successively heavier lifts on every policy goal.

With the stakes potentially so high on so many issues fundamental to the relationship, only the highest-level commitment will advance the agenda. There may never be a more opportune time.

Antonio Garza served as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico from 2002-2009. Mr. Garza is now counsel in the Mexico City office of White & Case and Chairman of Vianovo Ventures. He currently serves on the Council of the Americas’ Advisory Group on Immigration and can be found online at www.tonygarza.com

[Photo by victoriabernal]

By Bryan Llenas, Fox News Latino

Click on picture to read story.

[Photo by Presidencia Mexico]

Por Maria Lourdes Pallais, Reporte Indigo

Sergio Aguayo considera que Enrique Peña Nieto está obsesionado con la majestuosidad del Tlatoani, propia de sus colegas del siglo pasado.

Sus modelos, Álvaro Obregón, Carlos Salinas de Gortari y Napoleón Bonaparte, personajes que han demostrado una legendaria capacidad organizativa.

Es “un obsesivo con la eficiencia y los resultados” cuyo gran objetivo es restaurar, si no la monarquía de Maximiliano, sí “lo ceremonioso”, la “majestad de la Presidencia” priista de antaño, luego de dos sexenios de presidentes panistas desorganizados, sin estrategias claras, sin cuidar la forma.

Así retrata al presidente Enrique Peña Nieto, el analista y académico de Colegio de México Sergio Aguayo Quezada.

“Vicente Fox tuteaba a todo mundo y dejaba que lo tutearan a él… Felipe Calderón se rodeó de mediocres y era un desorganizado, igual que Fox. Peña Nieto lo que busca es restaurar la majestad de la Presidencia porque haciéndolo demuestra el éxito”, opina el politólogo en entrevista.

Esa forma de asumirse como Jefe de Estado “por encima de todos” ha quedado plasmada en su forma de operar los primeros días de gobierno, dice Aguayo.

“En lo que lleva de presidente, Peña Nieto no se ha confrontado directamente con nadie. El quiere poner por encima de todo mundo al presidente…”

En una reciente reunión con los gobernadores para anunciar el plan de seguridad, por ejemplo, para evitar que se pusieran a chatear durante la sesión, ordenó que les quitaran los celulares.

“Esos son los pequeños detalles que muestran no solo su obsesión con el detalle sino también el que se le respete. Que el tiempo con él lo tienen que dedicar a él”.

¿Qué tanto va a poder? Es imposible predecirlo porque el país está muy cambiado y muy revuelto, reflexiona el analista.

Lo que sí está claro es que la primera meta que se puso, quitarle poder a la Maestra Elba Esther Gordillo, es un “reto personal fuerte para él” porque ella es sin lugar a ninguna duda la mujer políticamente más poderosa de México, “más poderosa incluso que el presidente en muchos sentidos”.

En efecto, ella puede vetar políticas de Estado sobre las que ningún Estado que se respete puede claudicar: la educación.  Y lo ha hecho “de manera muy ostentosa”. Imposible ignorarla, claro. Es más, ella es su objetivo principal.

Por eso, Peña Nieto le dedicó cuatro horas el 7 de diciembre pasado para “darle el lugar que se merece” y discutir con ella el tema de la reforma educativa.

“En esa lógica, el tiempo que le dedica a cada uno es un indicador de la prioridad que tiene para él”.

La decisión que, junto con su equipo, hizo el presidente de darle prioridad a esta reforma “es un gesto muy planeado, por tanto debe haber una planificación previa muy cuidadosa”.

Y Aguayo opina que si no logra “darle una apretada” a Elba Esther, quitarle un poco –o un mucho- de poder, el presidente “va a perder muy rápido ese halo de Tlatoani mexiquense del Siglo 21”.

En su opinión, hubo un acuerdo con la Maestra en el que ella queda “públicamente doblegada”.

Pero todavía no está claro cuál será el desenlace de lo que, para Aguayo, es un acuerdo pactado de antemano con ella.

“Estamos viendo un forcejeo con La Maestra del cual todavía no sabemos el balance final. Creo que Elba Esther decidió jugársela y ha surgido una resistencia pública para poner contra la pared a Peña Nieto; los partidos políticos van a tener que decidir cuánto se endurecen”.

Aguayo se refiere a los bloqueos que han surgido de los partidos de oposición en lo que respecta a la reforma educativa, una de las leyes estrella del jefe de Estado priista.

Cinturón para otros

La Maestra será la meta más vistosa y la más poderosa, pero también están los gobernadores y presidentes municipales, a quienes Peña Nieto ha logrado, con la aprobación de la ley que controla sus gastos, meter en cintura.

También ellos, junto con las televisoras, son “actores políticos y económicos que se salieron de los límites que les marcan las instituciones” y que un presidente “que se precie” tiene que buscar la forma de controlar.

“Los gobernadores se han convertido en una fuente de inestabilidad económica y financiera muy grande y también de desgobierno político. La pieza maestra del proyecto (de Peña Nieto) fue unir a los tres partidos. A partir de ahí se ha facilitado todo”.

Y las televisoras –Televisa y TV Azteca– que, de acuerdo con Aguayo, “han rebasado los ámbitos de su competencia económica para meterse en la esfera política”, hasta telebancada tienen, también se han convertido en “feudos de poder político que ningún presidente podía tolerar”.

Menos EPN, quien es muy consciente de que el presidente es Él. Intolerable que otros pretendan compartir ese poder.

Lo faltante en seguridad

Para Aguayo, la nueva estrategia de seguridad “es una mejoría notable” a la pretendida guerra contra el narco de Calderón que a todas luces ha sido un fracaso con más de 70 mil muertos.

Pero hay un elemento que le falta, por lo menos en la versión hasta ahora difundida.

¿Qué hará con Estados Unidos? ¿Habrá “una mayor beligerancia” hacia el vecino del norte que toque “la fibra nacionalista” con solo mencionar la posibilidad de legalizar las drogas?, se pregunta Aguayo.

[Photo de Sergio Aguayo cortesía de Reporte Indigo]

Maria Lourdes Pallais se jefa de redacción para Reporte Indigo, donde esta columna fue publicada.

By Tony Castro, Voxxi

President Barack Obama welcomes Mexico’s president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto this week amid Mexican belief that it is their moment even as their country struggles with drug cartel violence and a continuing negative image in America.

Mexico’s optimism is bolstered by a growing middle class, a stabilizing security situation and the prospects for energy and institutional reforms that leaders believe strengthen the country’s economic, political and hemispheric influence.

“Mexico, in spite of a long season of security and violence stories, is attracting investment,” says Antonio Garza, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and now in private practice for an American law firm in Mexico City.

“Why? Because people putting money in a country read beyond the headlines. They know that other emerging markets face similar challenges.”

Americans continue to have a negative image of Mexico

Still, an unprecedented new study reports that Americans continue to have a negative image of Mexico, largely because of the drug violence in that country.

Half of all Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Mexico, with fewer than 20 percent viewing its economy as modern and more than 70 percent believing it is unsafe for travel, according to the survey conducted by Vianovo in partnership with GSD&M.

“President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto inherits a Mexico whose image has been battered by the drug violence,” says Vianovo founding partner James Taylor.

“But with a growing middle class and strong GDP growth, Pena Nieto has an opportunity to expand the focus of the relationship beyond security to include immigration, trade and economic issues — to the benefit of both nations.”

The survey, though, found that almost 60 percent of Americans see Mexico more as a source of problems for the U.S., while only one in seven believe that Mexico is a good partner and neighbor.

Among conservatives, the attitude toward Mexico was even harsher. Almost 80 percent see Mexico as a source of problems for the U.S.

Despite those findings, some businessmen remain optimistic about Mexico’s prospects.

“Mexico has many positive economic and cultural stories to tell, but changing perceptions will take a concerted effort in both the U.S. and Mexico,” says GSD&M executive Duff Stewart.

Obama will host Peña Nieto on Tuesday. Peña Nieto will be sworn into office Dec. 1.

“The President looks forward to meeting President-elect Peña Nieto and hearing about his vision for leading Mexico over the next six years,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

“They plan to discuss a broad range of bilateral, regional and global issues during their Oval Office meeting. The President welcomes the opportunity to underscore the shared values and strong bonds of friendship between the United States and Mexico.

“The United States remains committed to work in partnership with Mexico to increase economic competitiveness in both countries, promote regional development, advance bilateral efforts to develop a secure and efficient 21st Century Border, and address our common security challenges.”

This article was first published in Voxxi.

Los Angeles-based writer Tony Castro is the author of the critically-acclaimed “Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America” and the best-selling “Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son.”

[Photo courtesy World Economic Forum]

By Scott Stewart, Stratfor

Enrique Pena Nieto will be sworn in as Mexico’s next president Dec. 1. He will take office at a very interesting point in Mexican history. Mexico is experiencing an economic upturn that may become even more pronounced if Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party administration is able to work with its rivals in the National Action Party to enact needed reforms to Mexico’s labor, financial and energy laws.

Another arrestor to further expanding Mexico’s economy has been the ongoing cartel violence in Mexico and the dampening effect it has had on outside investment and tourism. Pena Nieto realizes that Mexico’s economy would be doing even better were it not for the chilling effect of the violence. During his campaign, he pledged to cut Mexico’s murder rate in half by the end of his six-year term, to increase the number of federal police officers and to create a new gendarmerie to use in place of military troops to combat heavily armed criminals in Mexico’s most violent locations.

According to Mexico’s El Universal newspaper, Pena Nieto is also proposing to eliminate the Secretariat of Public Security and consolidate its functions, including the federal police, under the Secretariat of the Interior. This move is intended to increase coordination of federal efforts against the cartels and to fight corruption. The federal police are under heavy scrutiny for the involvement of 19 officers in the Aug. 24 attack against a U.S. diplomatic vehicle in Tres Marias, Morelos state. This incident has long faded from attention in the United States, but the investigation into the attack remains front-page news in Mexico.

Of course, there are also commentators who note that Pena Nieto’s election is a return to power for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which held power in Mexico for some 70 years prior to the election of Vicente Fox of the National Action Party in 2000, and Felipe Calderon in 2006. This narrative claims that Pena Nieto will quickly return to the Institutional Revolutionary Party policy of negotiating with and accommodating the cartel organizations, which will solve Mexico’s violence problem.

Unfortunately for Mexico, neither law enforcement reforms nor a deal with the cartels will quickly end the violence. The nature of the Mexican drug cartels and the dynamic between them has changed considerably since Pena Nieto’s party lost the presidency, and the same constraints that have faced his two most recent predecessors, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon, will also dictate his policy options as he attempts to reduce cartel violence.

Constraints

As George Friedman noted about the U.S. presidential election, candidates frequently aspire to institute particular policies when elected, but once in office, presidents often find that their policy choices are heavily constrained by outside forces. This same concept holds true for the president of Mexico.

Fox and Calderon each came into office with plans to reform Mexico’s law enforcement agencies, and yet each of those attempts has failed. Indeed, recent Mexican history is replete with police agencies dissolved or rolled into another agency due to charges of corruption. The Federal Investigative Agency, established in 2001 by the Fox administration, is a prime example of a “new” Mexican law enforcement agency that was established to fight — and subsequently dissolved because of — corruption. Pena Nieto’s plans for law enforcement reform will be heavily constrained by this history — and by Mexican culture. Institutions tend to reflect the culture that surrounds them, and it is very difficult to establish an institution that is resistant to corruption if the culture surrounding the institution is not supportive of such efforts.

Another important constraint on the Pena Nieto administration is that the flow of narcotics from South America to the United States has changed over the past two decades. Due to enforcement efforts by the U.S. government, the routes through the Caribbean have been largely curtailed, shifting the flow increasingly toward Mexico. At the same time, the Colombian and U.S. authorities have made considerable headway in their campaign to dismantle the largest of the Colombian cartels. This has resulted in the Mexican cartels becoming increasingly powerful. In fact, Mexican cartels have expanded their control over the global cocaine trade and now control a good deal of the cocaine trafficking to Europe and Australia.

While the Mexican cartels have always been involved in the smuggling of Marijuana to the United States, in recent years they have also increased their involvement in the manufacturing of methamphetamine and black-tar heroin for U.S. sale while increasing their involvement in the trafficking of prescription medications like oxycodone. While the cocaine market in the United States has declined slightly in recent years, use of these other drugs has increased, creating a lucrative profit pool for the Mexican cartels. Unlike cocaine, which the Mexicans have to buy from South American producers, the Mexican cartels can exact greater profit margins from the narcotics they produce themselves.

This change in drug routes and the type of drugs moved means that the smuggling routes through Mexico have become more lucrative then ever, and the increased value of these corridors has increased the competition to control them. This inter-cartel competition has translated into significant violence, not only in cities that directly border on the United States like Juarez or Nuevo Laredo but also in port cities like Veracruz and Acapulco and regional transportation hubs like Guadalajara and Monterrey.

Cartels Evolve

The nature of the Mexican cartels themselves has also changed. Gone are the days when a powerful individual such as Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo could preside over a single powerful organization like the Guadalajara cartel that could control most of the drug trafficking through Mexico and resolve disputes between subordinate trafficking organizations. The post-Guadalajara cartel climate in Mexico has been one of vicious competition between competing cartels — competition that has become increasingly militarized as cartel groups recruited first former police officers and then former special operations soldiers into their enforcer units. Today’s Mexican cartels commonly engage in armed confrontations with rival cartels and the government using military ordnance, such as automatic weapons, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades.

It is also important to realize that government operations are not the main cause of violence in Mexico today. Rather, the primary cause of the death and mayhem in Mexico is cartel-on-cartel violence. The Calderon administration has been criticized for its policy of decapitating the cartel groups, which has in recent years resulted in the fragmenting of some cartels such as the Beltran Leyva Organization, La Familia Michoacana and the Gulf cartel — and thus an increase in intra-cartel violence. But such violence began in the 1990s, long before the decapitation strategy was implemented.

Because the struggle for control of lucrative smuggling routes is the primary driver for the violence, even if the Pena Nieto administration were to abandon the decapitation strategy and order the Mexican military and federal police to stand down in their operations against the cartels, the war between the cartels would continue to rage on in cities such as Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Guadalajara and Acapulco. Because of this, Pena Nieto will have little choice but to continue the use of the military against the cartels for the foreseeable future. The proposed gendarmerie will be able to shoulder some of that burden once it is created, but it will take years before enough paramilitary police officers are recruited and trained to replace the approximately 30,000 Mexican soldiers and marines currently dedicated to keeping the peace in Mexico’s most violent areas.

One other way that the cartels have changed is that many of them are now allied with local street gangs and pay their gang allies with product — meaning that street-level sales and drug abuse are increasing in Mexico. Narcotics are no longer commodities that merely pass through Mexico on their way to plague the Americans. This increase in local distribution has brought with it a second tier of violence as street gangs fight over retail distribution turf in Mexican cities.

Finally, most of the cartels have branched out into other criminal endeavors, such as kidnapping, extortion, alien smuggling and cargo theft, in addition to narcotics smuggling. Los Zetas, for example, make a considerable amount of money stealing oil from Mexico’s state-run oil company and pirating CDs and DVDs. This change has been reflected in law enforcement acronyms. They are no longer referred to as DTOs — drug trafficking organizations — but rather TCOs — transnational criminal organizations.

With the changes in Mexico since the 1990s in terms of smuggling patterns, the types of drugs smuggled and the organizations smuggling them, it will be extremely difficult for the incoming administration to ignore their activities and adopt a hands-off approach. This means that Pena Nieto will not have the latitude to deviate very far from the policies of the Calderon administration.

Constraints Facing the Next Mexican President is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Scott Stewart oversees Stratfor’s security team and its analytic efforts on issues around the globe. He also consults with clients on security-related issues affecting their organizations or personal safety and oversees Stratfor’s extensive coverage of the security environment in Mexico and closely monitors Mexican drug cartels, their areas of influence and their drug trafficking routes.

[Photo courtesy World Economic Forum]

Maria Lourdes Pallais, Reporte Indigo

Tache en elemental política exterior para Enrique Peña Nieto en su primer viaje al extranjero. El nicaragüense Daniel Ortega y el salvadoreño Mauricio Funes adujeron problemas de agenda para no asistir a la gira que el presidente electo inició ayer en Guatemala, a la que convocó a todos los presidentes del istmo. PY es que el priista cometió un error de principiante, uno que nos hace pensar que no solo no ha leído la Biblia de cabo a rabo, sino que tampoco conoce las reglas diplomáticas del buen vecino.

Además de informarle sobre las grillas entre los presidentes que se disputan el liderazgo del istmo, Peña Nieto necesita que alguien de su equipo le explique que, en la región que algunos conocen como “el patio trasero” de México, también hay protocolos, y dignidad, por supuesto.

Por Sanjuana Martinez                                                                                                                 

Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas – En este pueblo que alguna vez fue mágico, el padrón electoral “esta lleno de muertos, desaparecidos y gente que se fue por la violencia”, dice la funcionaria de la casilla básica 718 prácticamente desierta debido al miedo generado por la batalla que libran los Zetas y el Cártel del Golfo por el control de la zona.

Las calles desiertas fueron recorridas por un convoy del Ejército Mexicano y otro de la Policía de Tamaulipas, pero ni así la mayoría de sus habitantes se animó a acudir a su cita con las urnas: “Es normal, la gente tiene miedo, tenemos miedo. Los que están fuera no pueden llegar porque tienen miedo de los retenes de un lado y del otro”, dice el maestro Rolando Ramírez miembro del Comité de campaña del PRI.

Por un lado, al norte de este municipio los Zetas controlan Guerrero y por el Este, el Cártel del Golfo domina Miguel Alemán; ambos instalan “retenes” en las carreteras y brechas lo que tiene aterrorizada a la población que finalmente prefiere no desplazarse: “Mucha gente que se fue hace dos años no ha vuelto, pero a pesar de todo, ha venido gente. Ya se sabe: el miedo”, dice Mara Chávez presidenta de la casilla básica 716.

By Sam Quinones, A Reporter’s Blog

Twelve years after peacefully voting out in a clean election the party that had ruled it as a political monopoly for seven decades, Mexicans returned the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to power. Enrique Pena Nieto won with an eight-point majority Sunday that was comfortable though much smaller than polls were indicating. The PRI also won governors’ posts in Jalisco, Hidalgo and Chiapas.

Pena Nieto takes office on Dec.1. Not many appear to know what he’ll do as president, but his background wouldn’t seem encouraging to anyone interested in the continuation of democratic reform in Mexico.

He is from Atlacomulco, a fascinating little town in the State of Mexico, the horseshoe-shaped state surrounding Mexico City that is its largest in population. (Five of Mexico’s largest cities are suburbs to Mexico City in the state of Mexico: Tlanepantla, Ecatepec, Naucalpan, Chimalhuacan, and Nezahualcoyotl.)

Some half dozen of the state’s governors have come from little Atlacomulco. The Grupo Atlacomulco is a kind of political clan. Its hallmarks through the decades of PRI hegemony were a combination of laissez-faire, some would say crony, capitalism combined with political authoritarianism and personal enrichment while in office.

In time, even the governors of the state who weren’t actually from Atlacomulco bought into the clan’s governing ideology of taking what you can get while you have the chance. One of its standard bearers, Carlos Hank Gonzalez, came up with the phrase, “Un politico pobre es un pobre politico” – a politician who is poor is a poor politician.

Hank was one of Mexico’s richest men when he died, without having spent a day working in the private sector.

His saying seemed PRI ideology, together with the preservation of its own power, for its decades as Mexico’s political monopoly.

Pena Nieto is the first from Atlacomulco to become president.

A lot has changed in Mexico that will prevent that PRI monopoly from reconstituting. There are political actors today who will counter-balance the PRI’s power. Political institutions such as the Federal Electoral Institute are no longer part of the PRI. The media is more independent.

The left seems recharged. The Yo Soy 132 movement, resembling the Occupy movement here last fall, seems at the moment to have a lot of energy, and made Pena Nieto its target.

However, EPN would appear beholden to the two television networks (Televisa and Azteca), who seem, from reporting, to have created his candidacy from nothing, and pushed it even though he seemed a candidate with severe personal drawbacks.

What of the major reforms to education, energy, labor law, and on so, that the most agree the country needs and were blocked, largely by PRI congressmen, during the years the center-right PAN had the presidency? The PRI now has the presidency and the Congress – so it can push these reforms if it wishes. Will it?

During its years of hegemony, the PRI-government made deals with drug traffickers, facilitating the trade. This is one reason small groups of narco-hillbillies over the years developed into the menacing, well-armed, bold cartels that today threaten the country’s national security.

What will EPN do? He hasn’t said.

I’m interested to see whether a party that formed without ideology can now shape one. What exactly does a Priista believe? What compass guides him? I can’t tell you. After all, this is a party that nationalized banks, then privatized them a decade later.

In the past, the party’s philosophy nationally was most brazenly expressed and practiced by the Grupo Atlacomulco in the state of Mexico.

He has said he won’t return to that past, that he’ll govern responsibly, democratically.

But will a man who comes from a political culture that is used to participating in the lucre of politics have what it takes to stand up to these forces?

I really don’t know.

This blog is written by Sam Quinones,  a reporter at the Los Angeles Times. He has been a working journalist for 25 years, including 10 years in Mexico as a freelance writer. He is the author of  two books and many stories about immigrants, gangs, drug trafficking and more.

[Screenshot by News Taco]

By Susana Hayward Soler, News Taco                                                                                               

The empty chair spoke volumes.

Against a banner proclaiming “The truth will make us free,” students of Mexico’s I am 132 movement had everything to celebrate following the staging of an historic political debate with the country’s presidential candidates. That is, all but one, Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who is leading the race in most polls.

Less than two weeks before Mexico’s presidential election July 1, the youth movement #YoSoy132, created barely a month ago to protest media bias they charge favors the telegenic Pena Nieto, heralded the country into a new social media world that made the PRI appear old, out of touch and authoritarian.

After the students invited Pena Nieto to participate in the Tuesday debate, he issued a statement and delivered a fiery speech defending his refusal: While he “respected” the students, he said conditions for objectivity didn’t exist considering the movement was created to protest his candidacy. And he had a point.

But he missed a historic opportunity to show he was magnanimous, open to criticism and to new ideas. The other three candidates, Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, Josefina Vazquez Mota, of the ruling conservative National Action Party and Gabriel Quadri of the New Alliance Party, showed up for the debate, held at the National Commission of Human Rights.

The country’s television networks, dominated by Televisa and TV Azteca, also did not air the two-hour debate, only the third – and last – before elections. Instead, it was shown through the Internet. Within minutes of going live on YouTube and other media outlets, tens of thousands of viewers saturated the sites and brought the signal down several times, a victim of its success.

Interest skyrocketed.

“The debate was an unheralded exercise in the democratic history of the nation,” said the online news site SinEmbargo.mx. “Never before have a group of students organized an encounter with candidates to the presidency and never before has it been transmitted exclusively through the Internet.”

By Susana Hayward Soler, News Taco

Sometimes, a kiss is not just a kiss.

Take Manuel Lopez Obrador, for example. The leftist presidential candidate in Mexico’s upcoming elections is not one to smooch, no matter how serious the subject. Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, was one of four candidates who met with poet Javier Sicilia and with victims of Mexico’s drug war violence on Monday at Mexico City’s Chapultepec Castle.

Sicilia, a poet and human rights activitist who leads Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, or MPJD, believes a kiss is a sign of peace, as in: I come in peace, and so he kissed the other three candidates – Josefina Vazquez Mota, Enrique Pena Nieto and Gabriel Quadri as they were about to enter the castle.

But when he tried to kiss Lopez Obrador, yikes. Later, Lopez Obrador said he didn’t want the kiss to be the indelible image of the encounter portrayed in the media. Instead, the non-kiss became the subject of much debate on Facebook or Twitter.

Kiss or no kiss, Sicilia ripped into the candidates equally: Pena Nieto represents the old Institutional Revolutionary Party, corrupt and dictatorial, and on top of that Pena Nieto was “cold and showed no heart;” Vasquez Mota is an emblem of the party in power, the National Action Party of President Felipe Calderon, who declared war on drug cartels when he took office in 2006, a war that has left about 60,000 people dead; and Cuadri, of the New Alliance Party, was archetypal of a “mafia” led by Elba Esther Gordillo, president of the National Union of Education Workers.

“The 60,000 dead, the more than 20,000 who’ve disappeared, the hundreds of displaced, wounded and hunted, the dozens of widows and orphans that this stupid war is costing us don’t exist for you or your political parties,” said Sicilia, whose own son was murdered in Cuernavaca in 2011 by suspected drug gangs. “For you, there’s no national emergency.”

Nothing personal, Sicilia added.

Sicilia’s movement, created in 2011, wants drug trafficking issues to be treated as a health problem, not a criminal activity worthy of deploying all the country’s military and police forces in an all-out war. They also want new laws to account for the people believed to have “disappeared” since the drug war ensued five years ago.

The MPJD asked the candidates to have a “national unity pact” to restore peace in Mexico and it asked the presidential candidates to have it ready by June 10, when the second presidential debate in scheduled, the last before the July 1 elections when some 80 million are expected to vote.

[Photo Courtesy of Grupo Reforma-blogs]

Follow Susana Hayward on Twitter @mediasayer