Periódico Mexicano

Periódico Mexicano
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Mexican Elections Over the Years
By Samantha Navia
Since 1988, Mexico has undergone a slow
but steady democratization process. The start of it was
on July 2, 2000 when President Vicente Fox won. That
day there was about58,789,209 registered voters. The
Carter Center actually helped because throughout the 90s
they were trying to improve Mexico’s Presidential
elections. That caused a huge uproar because the PRI
party has never lost an election in 71 years. Every 12
years, the United States and Mexico’s political calendars
synchronize and both countries hold their presidential
elections. Last time that actually happened was in 2012.
There are two major political parties in
Mexico. The First party is PAN (the National Action
Party) which is a conservative, business-friendly party
that advocates reduced taxes, smaller government and
reform of the welfare state. The second political party
is PRI (the Institutional Revolutionary Party) which
had a 71-year dominance and made it the second
longest-ruling political party worldwide. The PRI
governed 17 of Mexico's 31 states, and was the dominant
party in congress. The PRI President Carlos Salinas
signed NAFTA in 1992 because he wanted to a better
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relationship with America. There is actually another
party but it’s not as big as the other two political parties.
The third party is PRD (Democratic Revolution Party)
its goal is to try to break the PRI stronghold, it was
created in 1989. Mexicans who do vote are looking to
see which candidate is most likely to fix the U.S.
economy which means when it booms, so does Mexico's
economy. Most Candidates try to only talk about fixing
the economy during elections because that’s what the
people what to hear and that’s what is going to get them
the votes that they need. Eighty-four percent of
Mexicans who live in America say that they would cast a
vote during the elections if they could. Out of that
eighty-four mostly were people over the age of fifty. For
a couple of years now the Mexican President has relied
on the U.S. President to help stop the drug wars. So far
nothing has worked and the Mexican President blames it
on the U.S. for being too involved in the Middle East. In
just a dozen years, Mexico’s leaders, encouraged by
citizens and civil society organizations, purposefully
transformed the country’s electoral politics to secure a
democratic future for their people.
By: Ran Tao
United States and Mexico
lie right next to each other on the
map, and share many similarities
with each other. However, Mexico
seems to have surpassed the U.S.
in their electoral system in the past
decade, progressing from not
meeting international transparency
standards to setting the example on
administering elections. In
contrast, the U.S. now seems to
pale as elections are backed by
large corporate sponsors, held for
ignorant voters, plagued by
unequal representation.
Mexico’s elections are
similar to the US in their
democratic form, but modify the
first-past-the-post system to allow
for better representation of the
numerous political parties. Unlike
the U.S., Mexico deals with three
major political parties, out of eight
total recognized parties. In order to
take into account the ideas of each
faction, Mexico uses a mixedproportional system, in which the
seats are not only determined by
the winning parties, but by a
proportional representation of the
votes as a whole as well. The U.S.
and Mexico alike use a bicameral
legislature composed of the
Chamber of Deputies and the
Chamber of Senates. The Mexican
Chamber of Deputies holds five
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hundred deputies each serving
three years, while the Chamber of
Senators has one hundred and
twenty-eight senators each serving
six years, much like the U.S.
House and Senate.
However, the differences
lie within those chambers, wherein
the representation of their multiparty system is handled through
their proportional seating. In the
Chamber of Deputies, three
hundred of the five hundred seats
are appointed in respect to the
percentage of votes each party
received, while the other two
hundred are appointed to the
winning party.
Their senate, the Chamber
of Senators, also mixes a first-pastthe-post system with proportional
representation. While the majority
of seats are given to winners of
each state, a fourth of the seats are
distributed to parties based on their
national proportion of votes.
This type of mixedproportional system can account
for a wider array of ideas, and a
better representation of the
people’s opinions when
administered correctly and
efficiently. Mexico certainly
accomplishes this efficiency, and
presents a solid electoral process
that defeats corruption and bias
while promoting public opinions
that surpasses U.S. policies in
some respects. Mexico’s Federal
Electoral Institute (IFE) stands
unbiased through a nonpartisan
system and uniform rules.
Although the parties can access the
IFE, they have no control over it.
In contrast, the U.S.’s electoral
system is administered through
thousands of counties, with
varying rules and capacity.
Moreover, the parties have some
control over the system. Therefore,
when the margins of votes are
close, such as that in Florida
recently, there results become
difficult to judge. Moreover,
Mexico manages to effectively
administer their elections even on
the micro-scale, as each poll
worker is randomly selected and
well-trained compared to that of
the American counterpart. And
with their effective system,
Mexico boasts a large 95% voter
turnout, each with sufficient
identification.
Maybe the U.S. has
something to learn from Mexico,
instead of just focusing on drug
trade and immigration. All in all,
Mexico is a liberal democratic
country worth looking up to.
The Drug Wars: What is it, and is
it worth it? By: Vivi Tam
Humans want what they are not allowed to
have, making it perfectly logical that many can’t get
enough of the addictive yet harmful drugs that have
fueled what the US calls the “Drug Wars” taking
place in the neighboring Mexico.
Both American and Mexican governments
have made efforts to stop drug trafficking in its
tracks through the enforcement of drug prohibition.
However, despite these efforts the cartels continue
to thrive, killing many in the process due to gangrelated incidents. In fact, according to Alejandro
Hope who discovered many corpses at a Sinoloa
stronghold, up to 26 bodies can be found at any
given location due to cartel-related issues. A simple
psychological concept is that of positive
reinforcement, where a behavior towards a stimulus
proves rewarding to the individual performing the
behavior, thus increasing its frequency. As the
government pours more and more money into the
“war against drugs”, we can expect an increase in
responding violence as well as increased
profitability of the illicit drug business, causing
drug lords to be encouraged to continue selling.
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As many other critics of the government’s
current efforts have pointed out, the drug wars must
be approached from a new angle in order to
effectively stop the sale of such harmful substances.
So what’s the solution? I say we take a risky
approach which involves reverse psychology.
Imagine if the U.S., the biggest consumer demand
for illicit drugs from Mexico, legalized these drugs,
but made them extremely undesirable to consumers
through huge taxes and education of the
consequences of drug abuse. This would
significantly reduce the demand for drugs and
through a domino of events, lead to the fall of the
enemy underground drug economy. People would
learn to associate drug dealing with more-thandismal profits, and stop participating in the market
in order to minimize losses.
We’ve seen the negative consequence of the
thriving drug economy; the minority of U.S. drug
users composes roughly 80% of drug business in
Mexico, hundreds die from violence daily (often
done by gangs carrying guns sold by American
dealers), and the drug wars still continue on today.
If we continue to blindly force order onto something
so desirable to the innate nature of humans, then we
will never see the end of the Drug War.
By: Marissa Romanucci
The battle that Mexico has been fighting for
decades against drug cartels continues to march on
ahead. The new commander in chief of this war, Mr.
Pena Nieto, was recently elected in December 2012. He
has promised to shift the focus from tackling the gangs
and hunting drug barons to reducing the crime and
violence that affect the lives of Mexicans. According to
BBC News, "keeping track of the drug deaths is
difficult, as official figures have been issued
sporadically. Most estimates put the number of people
killed in drug-related violence since late 2006 at more
than 60,000." The death count affects some cities more
than others. Chihuahua, Guerrero, Nuevo Leon, Sinaloa,
and Tamaulipas are some of the hardest hit cites, with
deaths in the thousands.
Additionally, the drug cartels’ main areas of
influence have been steadily increasing in the country
since 2010 - 2012, show in the graphs on BBC News.
The different drug cartels are: Cartel de Jalisco Nueva
Generacion, Beltran Leyva remnants, Los Zetas, Sinaloa
Federation, Gulf Cartel, and La Familia
Michoacana/Knights Templar. "Experts argue that there
are now two main players: the Sinaloa (also known as
the Pacific) Cartel and Los Zetas. US security firm
Stratfor, in a January 2012 report, said that Los Zetas
was the biggest cartel in terms of geographic presence.
However, analysts believe Los Zetas have now split into
two rival factions. One side is led by Miguel Angel
Trevino, a former member of the Gulf Cartel. The other
leader is a former soldier from an elite army unit,
Heriberto Lazcano. The Mexican authorities confirmed
on 9 October that Lazcano had been killed in a shootout
with marines"( ). The splitting of loyalty within a cartel
seems to be the effects of the strategy of the Calderon
administration. "Former President Calderon deployed
more than 50,000 troops and federal police against the
cartels. Many of the main gang leaders were either
arrested or killed". The administration argues "that the
violence showed that this aggressive strategy was
forcing gangs to split and take on one another, often in
increasingly brutal and gruesome fashion".
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There is also a large amount of corruption within
the military and police force. "Drug cartels with massive
resources at their disposal have repeatedly managed to
infiltrate the underpaid police, from the grassroots level
to the very top"(. The seemingly infinite amount of
money the cartel possesses makes them extremely
powerful. "According to the US Department of Justice,
Mexican drug gangs make about $39bn in profits a year,
with $6.5bn from exports to the US alone". The new
president, Pena Nieto, has already started to take actions
against these influential drug lords. "He announced the
setting up of a national gendarmerie, initially 10,000
strong, which will take over from the troops on the
ground and focus on law enforcement. The federal police
will also be boosted to focus on investigations." In order
to do that the police force will be rebuilt. "Peña Nieto
has already essentially demoted the federal police in a
government restructuring" explains the Los Angeles
Times. "Peña Nieto said he would also create a national
human rights program". This will help stop the reported
instances of torture and abuse by security forces.
The US also contributes to the problems in
Mexico. “A Senate report in June 2011, suggested that
some 70% of firearms recovered from Mexican crime
scenes in 2009 and 2010 and submitted for tracing came
from the US.” Even though the US attempts to work
with the Mexican government “a US justice department
report said that US efforts to tackle gun-smuggling
lacked focus, with not enough intelligence-sharing
between US agencies and with their Mexican partners.”
Progress is slow, but the countries of North America are
not giving up on Mexico just yet. “The US, Mexico,
Central American nations, Haiti and the Dominican
Republic form the Merida Initiative - a $1.5bn scheme
that aims to help by providing equipment and training to
support law enforcement operations.” Resolving this
problem may take decades, but the leaders of those
North American countries show no sign of abandoning
the war against drugs.
Rethinking the War on Drugs
By: Joe Sousa
I’m just going to come out say it; The War
on Drugs has been a failure in the United States. As
it has been currently handled, the War on Drugs has
cost one trillion dollars and countless thousands of
lives in the past forty years, all in the name of
bettering our country. But it hasn’t worked. Since
the start of the Drug War, the price of hard drugs
such as cocaine and Meth have fallen, while a rate
of prescription drug abuse has gone up. And the nail
in the coffin for the current drug wars failure is that
according to a recent Gallup poll, less than thirty
percent of the population views drug abuse as a
serious problem. The current way of fighting drugs
has failed, and now it’s time to try a new way of
fighting: prevention.
Drug prevention is the United States’s best bet to
fight the nationwide hunger for illegal substances.
But to do that a change needs to be made to the
account balance of the current efforts. Out of the
hundreds of billions of dollars spent combating drug
use, only a paltry 1.9% of the money is actually
used for drug prevention. But that’s just the federal
government; it’s even worse in the state
governments. Based on 2005 findings, for every one
hundred dollars states spend on substance abuse,
only two dollars and thirty-eight cents are spent on
drug prevention. This is appalling. With the amount
of drug users up by ten million since 1970, that
number needs to change if we are to see a drop in
drug abuse in the United States. If we focus more
on prevention than on direct combat, the country
will see a drop in the amount it costs to fight drug
war. With a current drug war budget of nearly five
hundred billion, we can definitely focus more
money on prevention and reap its rewards: a drop in
drug abuse.
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By: Monique Alcantara
Not a Good Start
By Patrick Chen
On December 1, 2012,
Enrique Pena Nieto was sworn
in as the 57th President of
Mexico. He replaced former
President Felipe Calderon,
whose tenure as President has
been marred by global
economic crisis and a drug war
the New York Times reports
has killed up to 100,000
Mexican citizens.
President Calderon’s
time in office was by no means
popular; however it remains to
be seen whether President
Nieto’s term will be able to
provide the Mexican people
with any sorely-needed change
in leadership. The new
President is hopeful: he has
criticized the previous
administration’s approach to the
drug war, stating to the Wall
Street Journal his first priority
would be to decrease violence,
even at the expense of the
capture or killing of notorious
drug lords. Indeed, this
approach seems to concede that
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for all measures the Mexican
government has taken in the
previous six years in fighting
the War on Drugs, they have
failed.
Studies done by the
Brookings Institution support
this approach, finding that in
2010 drug cartels based in
Mexico have received revenues
exceeding $18 billion from just
drug users in the United States.
In short, the Mexican
government must realize that
the “drug problem” is as much a
Mexican problem, as it is an
American problem.
However the number
one concern Mexican officials
face is a lack of trust in
government. Some of these trust
issues can be attributed to the
costly and bloody drug war the
government has been fighting
for the past six years. More
important is the concept of
corruption.
President Nieto is no stranger to
this issue. He has, after all, been
accused with his party, the
Institutional Revolutionary
Party (itself at the center of
previous scandals), of rigging
the results of the recent
elections in his favor. This
newspaper cannot yet ascertain
the veracity of these
accusations, but even if they
prove to be false, it must be
remembered Mexico is under
the leadership of a minority
President. Having received a
little under 40% of the total
votes, President Nieto must
work hard to create a positive
image of behind his
administration, something his
predecessor was unable to
accomplish.
But on this standard, the
President has failed. His
responses to the Yo Soy 132
movement have been
disappointing. Then Presidentelect, Mr. Nieto closed subway
stops near the legislative palace
where he was to be inaugurated,
as well as erected steel barriers
in a surrounding three-mile
radius.
Protesters were met with armed
police forces, and ninety of
which the Daily Beast reported
were arrested.
The Mexican people, at this
sensitive point in their history
need, and indeed deserve
transparency from their
government. A modern-day,
miniature Berlin Wall is not a
good start.
Student Union protestors
against President Nieto
Sources
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/02/8
-things-the-u-s-election-system-could-learn-frommexicos/
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryam
ericas/2012/09/2012914826929764.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america10681249
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/lafg-mexico-security-20121218,0,7396536.story
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