Mexico just concluded its presidential election, giving landslide victory to a “populist” candidate outside the mainstream political parties. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or Amlo as he is popularly known, successfully ran his third campaign for the highest office.
He takes over the leadership of a country that might best be classified as a “functioning failed state.” According to the Mexican risk-analysis and crisis-management firm Etellekt, in the nine months leading up to the presidential election, 132 incumbent politicians or candidates were killed. The group disclosed that 22 of Mexico’s 31 states have seen a political assassination since campaigning began in September.
Obrador was elected because of the people’s frustration with the current players in the political system, which have been unable to stop a deep security crisis while being entangled in a series of corruption scandals.
Unlike many other countries facing a communist or Islamic insurgency creating pockets without central or local government control, Mexico is at the mercy of its drug cartels. The government’s decades-long war against the drug cartels has seen 200,000 people killed. Over 25,000 people were murdered in Mexico in 2017, according to official figures—the highest number ever recorded—and the numbers for the first five months of 2018 are up 15 percent against the same period last year.
While some would refuse to see a direct causation, there is correlation between violent crime and the illegal drug business. Further, corruption in the government, particularly in law enforcement, follows the illegal-drug business.
Criticism of the Mexican government’s official “War on Drugs” focuses on its success—or lack thereof—and the methods used by the government. The public is put in the terrible position of two extreme logical positions: “If you can’t eliminate the illegal-drug problem, kill them all” against “If you can’t solve the illegal-drug problem, don’t kill anyone.” That sounds familiar.
In a turn from existing policy, Obrador has offered an alternative based on the “Colombian Solution” of stopping the war on drugs. Of course, no one wants to talk about the fact that Colombia’s cocaine production in now the highest in history since the “war” was halted.
President Obrador has suggested some sort of amnesty for marijuana and opium poppy farmers, as well as some sort of reconciliation and reduced prison time for members of the cartels. The families of victims of the cartel death squads are not pleased with these ideas.
Somewhere in the conversation always comes the idea that poverty is a root cause of the illegal-drug business, and if a nation could only reduce the number of poor people, the drug cartels—with their billions of dollars—would not be so powerful.
In theory, that may hold some truth. But the reality is that the Mexican drug cartels generate an estimated $30 billion in revenue per year, and that amount is probably grossly understated. Even at $30 billion a year, that money is 3 percent of the Mexican economy and a staggering 10 percent of the entire Mexican government budget for 2018.
Even as Obrador wants to consider some form of legalization of certain drugs, that can only help curtail illegal-drug activity if all countries make “drugs” legal. But even then, illegal sales of marijuana are still common in US states where marijuana is totally legal because the black-market price is lower, as it is not subject to tax.
President Obrador is going to need all the divine inspiration and good luck he can get to achieve success in his plans and programs.