Violence, corruption grip Mexico ahead of elections

Until January, Cuauhtemoc was a top official in the Attorney General’s office (PGR,) where he coordinated investigations of drug cartels. The US Drug Enforcement Aministration (DEA) has said he was believed to have links to the powerful Juarez cartel, and Mexican authorities wanted to question him about money laundering operations in the popular resort of Cancun. The affair was the latest in a series of scandals and violent incidents involving top officials.

Two weeks ago the PGR’s Chief administrator Juan Manuel Izabal committed suicide after authorities found about 1.5 million dollars in unexplained cash in his safe deposit boxes. Thursday’s attack on Herrera came one month after the slaying of the police Chief of Tijuana, a reputed drug cartel stronghold on the border with California. Prosecutors said earlier this month that the order to kill police Chief Alfredo de la Torre may have come from another top officer. Two weeks later, two lawyers representing drug cartel bosses were murdered.

The current atmosphere is not without similarities to that which preceded the 1994 election, when the ruling party’s presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio was shot dead in the northern city of Tijuana. That slaying has never been explained and conspiracy theories abound, with many pointing the finger to top officials of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that has ruled Mexico for more than seven decades. In its latest edition, the weekly Milenio said there could well be another such assassination of a leading politician this year. "If it happened six years ago in a more stable country, who can guarantee it would not happen in a Mexico in transition today?" Facing one of its toughest elections ever, the PRI has sought to polish its image tarnished by a number of scandals, and has taken steps toward democratic reform.