The cycle of bloodshed that has gripped Mexico in recent years is again reaching record peaks. The extent of the violence, and other types of crime, have pushed the issue to the top of the political agenda ahead of national elections on July 1. Political killings have also shot up, with politicians, including 48 candidates for office, murdered since the beginning of the electoral cycle in September, according to political consultancy Etellekt.
What is behind the violence? Mexico suffers from a chronic police shortage, with , positions unfilled around the country. The Government Security Agency says Mexico only has around half of the police it needs right now. Troops have been serving as police since December , when then-president Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on drug cartels. Human rights groups criticised the move , saying the army were not properly trained in dealing with civilians.
Since the crackdown on cartels began, many important drug kingpins have been arrested, leaving gangs to fight among themselves and fragment. That has lead to more, smaller gangs who are competing over the existing drug trade infrastructure β such as transit passes and good sites for building laboratories.
Faced with that competition, gangs are being driven to diversify their business. The famous Sinaloa cartel, for example, has invested heavily in the production of fentanyl, a new synthetic opioid considered to be times stronger than heroin. They say a pipeline is illegally tapped somewhere in the country every 90 minutes. People siphon off oil, transport it and resell it, employing and implicating large numbers of people in criminal networks in the process.
Salazar says this has lead to a surge in political violence. Salazar says the federal government in Mexico has lost control of local governments, leaving local politicians to get involved in criminal activities. On June 25, the entire police force of the town of Ocampo was disarmed and detained by state police , on suspicion of having orchestrated the murder of a mayoral candidate. Voters are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the state of Mexican security. But many say this headline-grabbing, top-down strategy has worsened every aspect of the security problem, diverting resources from local police, fragmenting gangs and making local governments less accountable.
