An Unpaved Future for Mexico’s Democracy

(Cr: Rebecca,Blackwell/ AP)

By: Andrew Earvolino

Chicago — Violent crime continues to plague the state of Mexico in the 21st century. Spread over multiple presidential administrations, crime of this nature is pervasive and seemingly unpreventable. The statistics demonstrate that things are not improving; in fact, they are getting worse.

In 2015, the homicide rate was 16.9 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. In just three years, that has increased to 27.3, with similar figures projected for 2019. Evidently, the cartels are to blame. As we enter a new decade, we have to consider what measures will effectively combat and ultimately defeat these formidable criminal organizations.

The administrations of the two previous presidents, Calderón and Peña Nieto, were both ineffective in dealing with this problem. Representing two different parties — Calderón with the center-right National Action Party (PAN), and Peña Nieto for the center-left Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) — each president failed to address this issue in a cohesive policy. Now, under the rule of López Obrador and the relatively new National Regeneration Movement Party (MORENA),it appears that the approaches taken by each party have failed. In office since December of 2018, López Obrador has not appeared to reduce violent crime at all.

It is time to consider if the true problem is not the party in power, but the current framework of the Mexican government. Mexico ostensibly became a consolidated, pluralist democracy the day Vicente Fox and his National Action Party were elected president in 2000. Ending seventy three years of rule by the PRI, it was a day of historical significance. But, close to twenty years have now passed. It begs the question: has the country ever truly existed as a healthy democracy?

According to a Pew Research poll from 2018, 85% of the Mexican population is currently dissatisfied with how democracy operates in their country. While many factors account for this overwhelming distrust, drug violence and the systemic corruption associated with the cartels are certainly major factors. Corruption has become so endemic that even the most localized sources of governance are seemingly dictated by cartel decision-making.

No one would suggest that the one-party rule of the PRI was ideal for the Mexican people. Regimes dependent on corruption and cronyism foster ineptness and coercion.

One could argue; however, that in the isolated case of Mexico, some have suffered more in a post-authoritarian democracy ridden with cartel violence than during the PRI’s reign.

Manuel Priani, a longtime resident of Cuernavaca, Mexico, admits that life was safer for many before 2000. He describes that during the rule of the PRI, party officials reached arrangements with cartels officials in which the state agreed not to go after their operations.

These agreements allowed such cartels to expand rapidly while minimizing the violence associated with their nefarious dealings. It was a delicate balancing act that worked for some time. This later dissipated throughout the Fox and Calderón administrations.

After these arrangements dissolved, major leaders such as “El Chapo” Guzman and Rafael Caro Quintero were targeted, and the cartels themselves became increasingly fragmented.

In such a fragmented state, violence began to escalate, as cartels entered and started to exert control over towns and communities. Corruption pervades once again with Mexico transforming into the volatile, dangerous place we see today.

Despite these developments, the re-emergence of authoritarianism is certainly not the answer. Corruption exists today because PRI established precedence for its existence. Miguel Priani has been a Mexican resident his entire life. Born in the late 1950s during the heart of the PRI reign, he has observed this perpetual corruption.

While acknowledging the heightened violence that has taken place in the 21st century, he laments that PRI’s rule “has left many scars that have not been forgotten…we have always lived with a corrupt government”.

Gabriel López, another resident of Cuernavaca, went even further in describing how the PRI remained in a position of power past its supposed fall from grace in 2000.

He argues that “the triumph of the PAN with Fox was instrumented and planned by the PRI itself.” They recognized that they couldn’t hold power forever and staged this “momentous” PAN victory, using their hold on public opinion to decide the election.

Their control would gradually decline over the course of the Fox and Calderón administrations, but the party itself remained very powerful, as seen with the victory of Peña Nieto. At this point, a strong argument could be made that the PRI has dictated the political and bureaucratic underpinnings of the Mexican state for close to 100 years.

So, back to the original question: what is Mexico’s true problem? Mexico’s problem is systemic and foundational. 85% of the Mexican population is dissatisfied with the way democracy operates in the country because democracy has never existed in the country. Mexico is a country still plagued by the corrupt bureaucratic model established by the PRI, a model that dictates how the cartels operate today.

Making things better will take time. But, it starts with the obliteration of the PRI party. A party of cronyism, coercion, and a complete dearth of ideological convictions is completely antithetical to democratic consolidation and the safety of the citizens that it aims to serve.

The answer to the cartels is the creation of parties with genuine ideas and thought-out solutions, not those that pander to the vague PRI model of unity and solidarity as we have seen thus far in the 21st century. If not the PAN nor MORENA, someone else must emerge. Once and for all, it is time to move past the troubled PRI legacy. If allowed to survive, it will continue to plague the Mexican state indefinitely.