Drug war plays big in Mexico vote
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
MEXICO CITY – When Mario Anguiano successfully ran for mayor of Colima three years ago, no one much cared that his brother and cousin were in prison on drug charges.
Now that he’s running for governor of Colima state, a banner appeared in the capital city mocking Anguiano’s family ties by linking him to the Zetas, a gang of drug hit men: “Welcome to Colima! Soon to be territory of our boss of bosses, Mario Anguiano Moreno. The Zetas support you, and we are with you until death.”
The drug war is playing in Mexico elections like never before. Usually a taboo subject hiding in plain sight, drug-trafficking didn’t figure prominently in political campaigns, even in places like the Pacific coast state of Colima, where Manzanillo port is a major transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine.
Anguiano’s Institutional Revolutionary Party denies involvement with drug traffickers and accused the ruling National Action Party of hanging the banner – which it denies.
But in the July 5 midterm elections for 500 congressional seats, six governors and 565 mayors, President Felipe Calderon’s party, known as the PAN, is aggressively painting opponents as soft on drugs and itself as the only party gutsy enough to take on the cartels.
“It’s the first elections where a party is directly linking itself to the drug-trafficking issue,” said Juan Azcarraga, director of Mexican polling firm Ipsos public affairs. “In the past, it was touched upon in a superficial manner, like an insinuation.”
The PAN is banking on a tough-guy image to keep its grip on power against Anguiano’s party, known as the PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before losing the presidency to the PAN in 2000.
The PRI is regaining support among Mexicans fed up with an economic recession and drug violence that has killed 10,800 people since Calderon took office in 2006.
At the same time, a growing citizens’ group disillusioned with what it sees as ineffective politics as usual is urging voters to cross out all candidates in protest.
