On January 30, the people from the southern state of Guerrero will choose a new governor. But on the eve of the election, a wave of violence currently happening in the state is foreshadowing how troubled and controversial the first election of 2011 could be.
In the first 15 days of this year, at least 80 people have been executed in the state, which is known worldwide by the Port of Acapulco, its wonderful beaches and nightlife. A combination of drug trafficking and political violence has put the state in the sight of political analysts and election officials.
Few days ago, Guillermo Sanchez Nava, who was part of the campaign team of the leftist Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) candidate for governor, was brutally assaulted allegedly by members of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). As a result of the aggression, Sanchez Nava remains in coma since Jan. 12.
The PRI and the PRD are getting involved in mutual accusations of provoking the violence. Local press is reporting that more violence would erupt today during the first public debate among candidates.
Political violence is not strange to the state of Guerrero. During the seven decades of PRI’s hegemony, the “caciquismo” –a political model based on repression, clientelism (buying votes) and charismatic authority– reigned in several regions of the state. The town’s caciques were the equivalent of a dictator, abusing their powers and repressing people with torture, jail sentences and even disappearing or killing detractors. That was a form of government that prevailed for so many years affecting mostly the rural areas. Although in 2005, the PRI lost the control of the state against the PRD candidate, the political violence continues. The caciquismo was not eradicated but simply transformed, corruption and impunity prevail and organized crime has flourished as in the rest of the country. Besides that, the two main political parties have been involved in a confrontation that has left more than 26 members of the PRD killed in the last five years.
If this was not enough, the structural causes of the violence in Guerrero –extreme poverty, high illiterate and mortality rates, among others– have not disappeared yet. The emergence of Guerrero as a distribution center for cocaine has added complexity to the situation. The military presence in the state has resulted in more violence and also in an increase in the number of human rights violations denounced in the last years.
Guerrero has a population of 3 million people and 17.2 percent of them are indigenous. From the total of the population, 22 percent are illiterate; in some areas, that percentage reaches 80 percent. In fact, along with Oaxaca and Chiapas, Guerrero is part of the so called “extreme-poverty triangle” of Mexico. The poorest areas in the state are located in the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental, where opium and marijuana grow easily. In fact, Guerrero holds the first place in the nation in cultivation of poppy and in the production of opium gum, and thousands of impoverished peasants have been dragged to cultivate it.
Until recently, the production of drugs in Guerrero was under control of the Arturo Beltran Leyva’s organization, but after his death in 2009, other groups have been fighting to take control of the plaza. This has lead to an increase of violence and gruesome assassinations.
In few words, Guerrero has all the elements of a powder keg: there are two parties using the most archaic methods of political confrontation –beating the adversaries, buying votes, threatening populations, and probably dealing with drug trafficking issues too. Then there is the extreme poverty and the lack of welfare for the majority of the population. Aside of that, there are the drug traffickers taking advantage of the impoverished people, and on the top of it, there are the drug cartels fighting each other and the government trying to fight them.
In a scenario such like this, the first Mexican election of 2011 doesn’t look any promising. The Guerrero state is very unique in the Mexican political geography, but many of the conditions in which the election will happen are similar to other states. In this sense Guerrero could anticipate how the political atmosphere would be for the entire country for the rest of the year.
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