Well, we're getting to the end of a Saga so I'm going to give my quick rundown on what I found out about the political climate of Mexico. It's nothing like any political climate I've seen in the developed world, in fact I found it had a LOT of parallels with my old home of Costa Rica. Here's my outsider's perspective on what I learned about Mexico and the unique problems they face.
THE LAY OF THE LAND
First we need to understand the 20th century political history of Mexico. For about 80 years, only one political party, the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) would win any elections. Mexico had what's known as single-party system, where only one political party has power over the nation for 15+ years.
Costa Rica also had something similar to this under the PLN party for decades. In geopolitics, Mexico's government had been referred to as the "perfect dictatorship," which was a revolving door of presidents all serving their constitutionally-restricted 1-term-6-year sentences and then passing it onto another party insider to continue the job.
The PRI DOMINATED Mexican politics for several generations. It's kind of crazy to think, but the elections that mostly mattered were the elections FOR who would run in the PRI. It happened with party insiders mostly behind closed doors. People were born, grew, lived to voting age, and voted for decades all the way to life expectancy and died without ever seeing another party win a presidential election.
In the 1990s the party began to lose power after quite literally stealing an election to stay there. The young generations weren't having it anymore and in the year 2000, a different right-wing party, PAN took over. This changed everything. A new era in Mexican politics began. From then on, Mexican elections were competitive and it was anyone's game. Even the black market cartels would have more trouble buying politicians if they were from running from multiple competitive parties. It changed their game as well. Which, by the way, we can't talk about Mexican politics without the cartels.
THE CARTELS - INTRO
In the 1970s, Nixon began the war on drugs. We can talk about how much of a failure it's been, or how Nixon's War on drugs was specifically to go after minorities as recorded on a racist rant you can hear the recording of on youtube--- but what I'm going to talk about is how the drug war MADE THE CARTELS. Before the war on drugs, people could traffic and smoke weed -almost- as much as they wanted. There wasn't a lot of resources going into stopping pot but it WAS illegal before the war ramped up under Nixon.
When the war ramped up, the US put pressure on it's neighbor, Mexico, to stop production and trafficking. At that time, the pot industry was a loosely associated network of farmers and traffickers that worked under "The Plaza System." Farmers would give to dealers, and dealers would pay tribute to each territory or "plaza" they trafficked through on their way to market-- the US.
When the Mexican government began cracking down on the growers and traffickers, this hurt a lot of local economies that were based on this Plaza System. The system would have to get more clandestine. More organized. More collective.
Then came Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. The Jefe of Jefes. The Godfather. The boss of bosses.
Miguel Angel went around Mexico and started making deals with all the "Plazas". He went to Ciudad Juarez. He went to Sinaloa. He went to Tiajuana. When a plaza mob boss liked numbers, he talked numbers. When the plaza leader responded to flattery and cash, Miguel Angel would do just that. He laid the groundwork to unite a loose confederacy of traffickers and growers to create the first ever cartel in Mexico, the "Guadalajara Cartel."
At first it was pot. Then Miguel Angel started working with the Cali and Medellin COCAINE cartels down in Colombia to traffic it into the states. Through Miguel Angel's Guadalajara Cartel, Pablo Escobar was able to make billions off of Miguel Angel's plaza-leaders' trafficking networks and business contacts.
When the US began the crackdown, it only organized the trade more. Then came Kiki Camerena.
THE CARTELS - THE BREAKUP OF THE GUADALAJARA CARTEL
A DEA Agent known as Kiki Camerena was captured and killed by the Guadalajara Cartel. At that time, the DEA was an underfunded, ragtag federal agency that was thrown a bone any time they had a lead. They were never given the attention or funding they truly needed to tackle the drug trade in Mexico.
All that changed with Kiki. When Kiki died, the agency went from a small rag-tag loosely-associated network of cops to a military-style force with the budget of a small nation. The DEA became a name to fear. The US immediately began to threaten Latin American governments with economic retaliation if they didn't immediately grant the DEA operating power within their borders. The CIA, by comparison, would do things in the shadows. The DEA would do things right out in the open.
After Kiki, the cartels all had to be even more secretive. The assassination of Kiki Camerena also brought about the end of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. He was imprisoned and the Guadalajara cartel fractured into several smaller cartels that all began to fight over markets, territory, contracts, and resources. The Tijuana, Sinaloa, and Juarez Cartels (to name a few) broke out away from the Guadalajara Cartel which had been made defunct after Miguel Angel's arrest.
THE CARTELS - WAR
With the DEA cracking down and Miguel Angel arrested, all of the cartels began to fight each other.
The Juarez Cartel was lead by "The Lord of the Skies" Amado Carrillo who was one of the original pilot traffickers to assist in Miguel Angel's networking to end the Plaza System to bring about the Guadalajara Cartel. He supposedly killed in a facial reconstruction surgery to change his appearance.
The Tijuana Cartel was lead by a family known as the Arellano Felix brothers. One of them actually went into hiding and was approached by a film crew for the David Letterman Show when he was in exile and hiding in plain sight. He would later be assassinated by the Sinaloa Cartel in Mazatlan.
The Sinaloa cartel has by far become the most powerful in western Mexico. Their ability to own geographical shoreline that 'borders' Colombia by the Pacific has given them some advantages, but they had no US border. They've been fighting the Juarez and Tijuana cartels for that turf and it's worked. The Sinaloa Cartel was lead by "El Chapo" Guzman, known as the "Tunnel Man" who would create tunnels to traffic under the border, under the noses of both the US government AND his rival cartels that thought they had their territory locked down. He was arrested and escaped from prison twice, (once using tunnels) until he was finally taken down and imprisoned in the US. When I was in Sinaloa in late 2022, his sons were arrested, also Sinaloa cartel leads.
All of these original leaders, who were all legacy Guadalajara Cartel leaders, have fallen. Now, new people have taken their place and escalated the war in the shadows. People with no names, or when names are mentioned, people die. The conflict escalated in the early 2010s to its worst point yet.
Even in the east, the more stable and older Gulf Cartel had hired a group of paramilitaries called "Los Zetas" to do the dirty work of the cartel. Los Zetas ended up actually learning the tricks of the cartel trade in the process and wanted a piece of the pie themselves. They turned on their contractors, the Gulf Cartel, and started a civil war in the east of Mexico.
So both East and West Mexico have wars going on in the shadows. You typically don't have random killings without some sort of connection. Tourism locales have been off limits but it isn't a hard and fast rule. Families have been torn apart. Entire towns, under the control of one cartel, were taken by another more violent one, and the locals helped the old one come back to go back to the way things were. Intimidation videos have been posted online, garnering followings of the violence so people can try to understand what's happening. It's all been very difficult to follow and we sometimes don't know the result or "who won what" until months or even years after. It's a shadow war.
So, you're probably wondering, what has the government done about this?
THE CARTELS AND THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT
We have to think about power here for a minute. Where does power come from? I know where we SAY it comes from, whether it's from written laws like a constitution, or money, or whatever. But where it ACTUALLY lies is different from where we think it is.
In the US in 2010, the US Supreme Court made the "Citizens United Decision" where they allowed companies to make UNLIMITED CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS TO SUPER PACS. When this happened, companies could have a say in politics, and they have A LOT OF MONEY. From 2010 onward, we entered a new, super-capitalistic era of politics where companies have more say in the political process.
Because of this, politicians have made many laws, and judges have made rulings, based on what companies want because that's where the money is, therefore, that's where the power is.
Now take that model and slap it on Mexico. Imagine a massive, gigantic source of money that can influence politicians, make them powerful, make them flee for safety, or help them eliminate their enemies. Instead of private corporations, they're more shadowy black-market businessmen. Cartels.
Mexican politicians have to do everything they do with the cartels in mind, whether it's the right thing to do or not. If they go against the cartel, it's not just their re-election chances on the line, it's their life.
If they want to try to "play the game" to both stay alive AND make incremental change, they may have to do the cartel bidding every once and a while to both stay safe and make change in a pragmatic manner. In the US, we point the finger at Mexican politicians and say they're "friends of the cartel" if they do this or that, but sometimes it's both political and physical survival these politicians are playing with. The rules are different here. Every politician is a 'wartime politician' in some way.
THE RECENT GOVERNMENT
In 2018, like in 2000, there was yet another massive shift in Mexican politics. Mexico didn't fight in World War II. They didn't have a "baby boom". The population slants toward the young unlike the US, where the bulging Boomer Generation has a lot of political power because of their high turnout and demographics.
In 2018, the young vote came out in force during the presidential election and Mexico had it's first left-wing government in it's post-revolution era. The former mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (also known as AMLO) became president as a part of the MORENA party. A fellow left-wing party, the National Citizens Movement Party also made gains and took some governorships in states across the country. Mexico swung to the left for the first time in living memory.
Now, --LEFT-- in Latin American terms is very different from the US or even Europe. There are, however, some parallels. Making weed illegal ended. Abortion was put to the states to legalize. Government programs to assist in social safety nets have been expanded.
Then there's his actions with the agencies at his disposal. The general feeling toward AMLO has been mixed, and even negative when I've been speaking with more liberal, open-minded, younger Mexicans. No one is criticizing him on his actions on cartel violence or anything like that, but a lot of people are showing some concern on his control over the military and agencies. He's been using the power of government to be more left-wing authoritarian, unlike governments that will use the power of private industry to be right-wing authoritarian. AMLO has siloed government institutions under his authority in a way that his power can't be checked.
From what I've heard, AMLO is trying the Chavez playbook of Venezuela. He's using the power of Government to make change in dubious manners that are still within the bounds of phat we may philosophically claim is 'legal'. I do have a line he has not yet crossed. If he uses the power of his party or judges to make changes to the constitution to re-elect himself or make changes to his checks on power, he's moved into Nicaragua / Venezuela Left-wing authoritarian mode. I haven't seen that yet, but the rumblings are there.
Wealthier Mexicans, those I'd met in Mexico City, had been claiming that his policies are aimed at assisting the poor at the expense of the middle class. The middle class is being squeezed of their wealth according to these wealthier Mexicans. I've seen them claim he's been playing class-war and division, but I haven't seen any of these. Most of his campaigns have been out of promises for a better tomorrow or playing on hope rather than division, but this is only from my limited scope after the elections have been over for 4+ years.
CHANGES BEGET CHANGES
In a collectivist society like Mexico, and even Costa Rica I see public opinion against those in power always swing negative on a long enough timeline. I rarely see anyone ra-ra-ing for the team in power, and I guess that's the same as Canada's Liberal Party. It's easier to be an underdog and it's ALWAYS popular to criticize.
Mexicans seem to be ready for something new. 6 years is a long time to be in power. It's long enough to make changes, but also too long for short memories. People forget the good you did early in your administration and start to focus on what you HAVEN'T done.
External factors that may or may not have been under your control really start to stand out. People focus on the bad. 6 years is a long time for your political opponents to stack up your failures and shortcomings.
When swings happen in Mexico, it's typically all done at once. I hardly see anyone stick hard and fast to one party, even less so than Mexico. A LOT of people in Mexico vote with however they're feeling that year compared to any strict political issues. There are so many things to focus on other than politics here. "We're all hurting and we're always disappointed." They'll say, "but I'll be damned if I don't go vote." (Mexican voter turnout in presidential elections is typically higher than the US by 5-10%.)
So there you have it. That's not all, but that's a high-level outsider's crash course. A little history, a little current events, all in a world far different from my own but so close to us geographically. I'm optimistic for Mexico's future, but it's going to be a roller coaster. I still see it as being a part of the "developed" world for quite some time, probably the rest of my life, but I could be pleasantly surprised. Whatever Mexico becomes at the end of the 21st century, it'll probably be more united than we will be in the US.
-JT
4/30/2022