AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 1 he escape of notorious drug kingpin
Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán from a Mexican prison in July 2015 was dramatic evidence of the chronic government corruptibility at the heart of Mexico’s security crisis. President Enrique Peña Nieto’s bold declaration a year before that El Chapo’s possible escape would be "unforgivable" ended up revealing his misunderstanding of his country’s vulnerable criminal justice system.1
Any informed observer of Mexico’s security challenge over the last several decades can recite the unfinished business of bringing organized crime and corruption under control: fundamental reform of government institutions in all branches and at all levels, criminal justice reform, and professional security forces that can impose the rule of law without fear or favor. That is a
daunting agenda, but Mexico cannot reach its full economic potential in this 21st century without a
modern state that can protect people and property.
Some of the country’s recent presidents adopted internal security strategies as a priority, and others have focused on economic and social reform, hoping that the rule of law would improve as Mexico modernized. Despite the fact that the vast majority of Mexicans are demanding public security, too many of their political leaders at all levels are either unwilling or unable to fight corruption and entrenched interests in favor of the rule of law.
Mexico is at a crossroads today. Although Peña Nieto began his presidency trying to emphasize economic modernization over security issues, today it is clearer than ever that it is impossible to build prosperity without security. Mexico’s political class has the responsibility to rally the nation behind the rule of law to rescue their country from corruption and criminality.
Mexico’s Cycle of
Crime and Corruption
By Roger F. Noriega and Felipe Trigos
T
September 2015
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s plan to prioritize a social and economic agenda above security issues was never realistic, and crime across the country shows that his security policy is failing.
If Mexico is going to take its place as a prosperous country in a globalized world, it will have to invest both political capital and money to build a criminal justice system that will apply the rule of law against violence and corruption. Economic prosperity is not possible without security.
A better security strategy in Mexico will enhance security and prosperity in the United States as well.
Mexico must drive the effort, but the US should partner with the nation, particularly in confronting organized crime.
KEY POINTS
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 2
New Approach, More Failure
Even before taking office in December 2012, President Peña Nieto sought to distance himself from the strategy of his predecessor, Felipe Calderón (2006–12), who waged a frontal assault on organized crime. Peña Nieto instead focused on a host of economic and social reforms to modernize Mexico’s economy. On the security front, he emphasized intelligence-driven law enforcement, greater cooperation from security agencies, and fighting high-impact crimes (murder, kidnapping, extortion, and robbery) that directly affect the civilian population.2 Although Mexican officials today argue that drug violence is not a countrywide phenomenon, the past year has been marked by deadly episodes—
including massacres and assaults on security forces—in rural states and key urban areas alike.3 Meanwhile, high-impact crimes continue to afflict much of the population, aggravated by the continued ineffectiveness or corruption of police, notably on the state and local level.
Over the years, Mexican authorities have had some success in dismantling large drug cartels, which has produced mixed results. When a large criminal syndicate is fractured, the continuing activities of splinter gangs can complicate security efforts.4 Additionally, debilitating one syndicate has a tendency to strengthen others by reducing competition, allowing them to
consolidate their presence and increase their operations in Mexico and beyond. For example, the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Cuinis, and Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación have actually benefited from effective police action against their competitors.
Suppressing high-impact crimes that affect personal security, which was Peña Nieto’s stated approach, is particularly difficult because it requires professional local law enforcement;
lacking professional policing, such crimes have grown worse in recent years. For example, in the first two years of the Peña Nieto administration, kidnappings increased 52.7 percent.5 A 30 percent increase in kidnappings from May to June of this year shows no sign of improvement.6
Statistics on executions by criminal groups demonstrate that impunity is rampant and worsening. According to Lantia, a Mexican consulting firm that specializes on security issues, in the 31 months of the Peña Nieto
administration, 23,758 executions have been reported. According to an article in Excelsior,
“Between June and October of 2014, executions related to organized crime were recorded at around 520-530 per month.”7 However, the average for 2015 has increased to 636 executions per month.8
In addition to these data, a succession of violent events in a number of states throughout the country have demonstrated that the federal government's security policy is failing.9 Instead of improving the situation, Peña Nieto’s original passive approach exposed the extraordinary weakness of institutions and the widespread corruption at the state and local level. As security crises have flared up around the country, as a last resort, Peña Nieto has used presidential authority and federal resources to impose order. This ad hoc response is no substitute for a coherent, comprehensive strategy.
One of the first security tests for Peña Nieto came in the state of Michoacán, which has been wracked by turf battles among a number of criminal organizations: the Knights Templar, La Familia Michoacana, Guerreros Unidos, Los Rojos, and Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación.
Beginning early in 2013, so-called self-defense groups began to push back against the criminal gangs in the absence of effective policing by state or local authorities. In January 2014, the vigilante
Instead of improving the situation, Peña Nieto’s original passive approach exposed the extraordinary weakness of institutions and the widespread
corruption at the state
and local level.
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 3 groups made international headlines when they
began to occupy cities and block roads, ostensibly to disrupt drug traffickers’ operations. This crisis spiraled out of control because of the dysfunction and corruption of state authorities; a succession of governors from two different political parties have been accused for years of criminal
associations with rival drug syndicates. Negative press attention eventually forced Peña Nieto to intervene, assigning a federal commissioner to replace the governor and deploying security forces to mitigate the damage.
Within months, Peña Nieto was forced to intervene in the states of Mexico and Tamaulipas when local authorities were unable to contain outbreaks of violence. In Mexico state, he increased the presence of the federal police and the army, and federal authorities devised a strategic security plan to quell the violence.10 In Tamaulipas, the federal interior minister was ordered to implement a new security plan that carved the state into four security zones, managed by federal commissioners.11 Perhaps the most dramatic example of
lawlessness occurred in Iguala, a small city 120 miles south of Mexico City in the tumultuous state of Guerrero. In late September 2014, 43 students at a nearby teachers’ college were expected to stage a protest that might disrupt a public speech by María de los Ángeles Pineda, wife of Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca. According to the initial investigation, the students were detained by local police and turned over to Guerreros Unidos, a local drug gang with whom the mayor’s wife purportedly had ties; the gangsters reportedly tortured and executed the victims and burned their bodies.12 The mayor and his wife were immediately detained, and the state governor was forced to resign under pressure from the federal government and civil society.
The thus far fruitless search for the remains of the murdered students took a grisly turn when investigators discovered a number of clandestine graves that contained the remains of unknown victims. The atrocity brought international attention and sparked a series of protests in Mexico’s principal cities. Peña Nieto and federal authorities have not been able to satisfy the demands for justice surrounding this case, which was a devastating reminder of the corruption and
dysfunction that hobbles Mexico’s criminal justice system.
More evidence that the criminal threat has not subsided came in May of this year, when the government launched a security operation in the state of Jalisco against the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación and Los Cuinis. Within hours, the gangsters were able to mobilize more than 500 men in coordinated counterattacks, shooting down a military helicopter; burning 11 banks, 5 gas stations, and 36 buses; killing 15 people; and injuring 20 others. They also blocked 12 highways affecting the central states of Jalisco, Colima, Guanajuato, and Michoacán.13
When he took power, Peña Nieto was determined to shelve Calderón’s confrontational approach;
however, he never produced an alternative strategy. As a result, the effect of Peña Nieto’s new security policy has been less of the same. He has continued to confront the cartels, but not as part of a broader strategy. He has continued to use the army, but has failed to provide the legal framework for the military to operate. He promised a professional police force, but has failed to pay for it. He has drafted a host of criminal justice reforms, many of which have not been approved or implemented. The result has been criminal organizations that are acting more boldly to confront a state that is not committed fully to the fight.
The Need for Deep and Broad Reform
Like many of his successors, Peña Nieto thus far has fallen short of the deep and broad
institutional reforms needed to build an effective and modern state. The need for progress on that front is more urgent than ever, since organized crime is taking better advantage of technology and global commerce than governments are. The continued violence and insecurity also is having a corrosive effect on popular support for
democracy, which is failing in the essential task of people keeping safe.
Corruption has had a devastating impact on Mexicans’ respect for their democracy and politics. According to a study by the Mexican
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 4 Competitiveness Institute and the Center for
Research and Teaching in Economics, "In every state, over 65% of the population perceives corruption in the public sector, and 44% of businesses in Mexico acknowledged having paid a bribe.” The study also found that only 37 percent of the population “supports democracy” and that
“the levels of perceived corruption in the institutions considered the pillars of a
representative democracy—political parties and the legislative branch—are extremely high (91%
and 83%, respectively) . . . which makes governability more complicated because the government lacks legitimacy in the decision making process.”14 Meanwhile, Transparency International reports that in the last six years Mexico has fallen 31 positions of 175 ranked countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index.15
The material impact of corruption and violence to Mexico’s $1.8 trillion economy is staggering.
According to the country’s Central Bank, corruption cost Mexico 9 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014, and according to the Global Peace Index, violence costs 22 percent of GDP.16 Last May, the Mexican Congress approved a constitutional reform to strengthen and extend the oversight powers of the Superior Audit Office; form a National Anticorruption System, which called for the creation of a coordinating committee with local authorities to fight corruption; create the Federal Court of Administrative Justice, which may penalize public servants; grant authority to the Senate to ratify the appointment of the head of the Secretariat of Public Service, the
government’s auditing body; and establish that public servants must declare their properties and conflict of interests.17
Of course, the implementation of this
anticorruption measure will take several years and depends on political will. In the past, numerous reforms have been scuttled by a political culture that relies on political patronage rather than institutions and the rule of law. And, the recent regression in Mexican politics to party caudillismo, which depends on political bosses, may discourage efforts to fight corruption.
Failures of Political Will
Rule of law in Mexico has been undermined by generations of corruption and inefficiency.
According to the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, Mexico has one of the lowest ratings (79 of 102 countries) in terms of its constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice, and criminal justice.18
The results of this broken system are dramatic.
Even before the escape of El Chapo, criminals have taken advantage of the corruption of Mexico’s criminal justice system, resorting to technicalities rather than tunnels. For instance, in 2013, the former leader of the Guadalajara Cartel, Rafael Caro Quintero, who is responsible for the murder of former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, was released from prison after a federal tribunal granted him an appeal based on alleged due process violations.19 Although the decision was later voided and the charges restored, this kingpin remains at large.20 Similar negligence occurred in the cases of Ruben Oseguera González, second-in-command of Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, and Rodrigo Vallejo, son of Michoacán’s former governor, who has proven links with Servando Gómez Martínez “La Tuta,”
notorious kingpin and former leader of the Knights Templar Cartel.21 This disturbing pattern reinforces popular distrust in Mexico’s judicial system.
For much of the last decade, acts of violence have led politicians to make speeches and propose judicial reforms to fight back against organized crime. However, successive governments have been incapable of translating rhetoric into
Corruption cost
Mexico 9 percent of its gross domestic
product (GDP) in 2014,
and violence costs 22
percent of GDP.
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 5 sustained, comprehensive action. Security
initiatives tend to take a back seat to entrenched political interests—particularly as state and local chieftains refuse to cooperate with a national strategy or as members of Congress lose interest.
For example, the Calderón administration proposed the 2008 National Agreement for Security, Justice, and Legality to implement police reform. Although the measure passed the Mexican Congress, its key provisions have not been implemented at a national level. After the brutal murder of 43 students in Iguala, Peña Nieto introduced a series of law-and-order measures to stem the rise of crime in several southern states in Mexico.22 Almost a year after that massacre, neither the president nor Congress has mustered the political will to approve this legislation.23
Today, according to a study by the Mexican organization Common Cause, only 4 of Mexico’s 31 states (plus the federal district) have
established a professional career in law
enforcement. Only nine states have a system for evaluating the performance of officers, and only six states have actually removed all officers found unfit by their agency’s vetting process. The study found that nearly 50,000 members of the active- duty police officers have expired vetting
certificates.24
Due to the lack of a well-trained and well- equipped police force, successive Mexican presidents have had little choice but to use the military to confront well-armed criminal gangs.
Mexico's secretary of defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos, commented recently on local government’s inability or lack of interest to assume their security responsibility. “I have not seen a serious commitment in several states for this to happen,” General Cienfuegos asserted, adding that it often is easier for local authorities to rely on the military than to reform their police forces.25
Another obstacle is the lack of adequate resources for civilian policing in the country. Included in the government’s package of budget cuts for 2016 is a $70 million cut for the federal “gendarmerie,”
which Peña Nieto proposed years ago to support local policing against high-impact crimes. Also included is a $100 million cut from the Federal Prison System, which has been shown to be
inefficient and corrupt, and $15 million from Plataforma Mexico, the country's most important criminal database.26 These cuts are tangible evidence of the lack of political will for the most urgent security measures.
Can Mexico Rally to Save Itself?
Besides generating worldwide media attention, the escape of El Chapo and other episodes of violence have served as a wake-up call to Mexicans that their leaders—despite decades of political initiatives and security campaigns—have failed to remedy the corruption of their criminal justice system. To overcome entrenched interests, Mexico’s political class must help build a national consensus in favor of the rule law.
Mexicans have demonstrated what they can achieve if their leaders present a vision, propose a program, and invest political capital to reach an objective. For example, the economic
modernization that the country has sustained for decades, carried out by multiple presidents from different parties, is extraordinarily impressive.
Under the administrations of Presidents Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000), Vicente Fox (2000–06), and Felipe Calderón, the country became a diversified industrial powerhouse; experienced healthy growth, low unemployment, and low inflation; and amassed international reserves to fortify the economy against crises. These presidents also adopted policies committed to moderate public spending and fiscal discipline.
From 1994 to 2012, Mexico took advantage of more than 40 free trade agreements and became the 15th largest exporter in the world. Mexico is the United States’ third most important commercial partner, with a two-way trade of
$530 billion.27 Although Peña Nieto has increased public spending and adopted tax reform that harms the country’s most productive sectors, he has received credit for investing political capital in the reform of Mexico’s energy and
telecommunications sectors.
In the short term, the prospects for such an ambitious initiative to advance the rule of law and begin sweeping criminal justice reform are not very promising. Political conditions in the
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 6 country are troubling—particularly when
compared to the impressive progress toward a genuine democracy that led to the historic election of opposition candidate Fox in 2000.
Today, the conservative National Action Party and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution are experiencing significant internal divisions.
These cleavages have allowed Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to consolidate its power and become a dominant force in at least 20 of Mexico's 32 states. Without a coherent opposition, the PRI could recover the overbearing dominance that helped it hold on to power from 1929 to 2000—a period in which caudillismo and corruption flourished.28 Ironically, although the PRI is consolidating its power, Peña Nieto has been weakened by Mexico’s slowing economy, accusations of personal corruption, and the deteriorating security climate. The PRI lost seats in congressional elections in July, with many blaming the president. Nevertheless, with so much time remaining in Peña Nieto’s term, it is difficult to imagine Mexico’s once omnipotent presidency shrinking in the face of significant challenges.
With US Support
Both the 2,000-mile common border and the fact that the United States is the biggest market for illegal drugs make the United States and Mexico partners in confronting transnational organized crime. Moreover, securing the border to prevent illegal crossings while allowing a half trillion dollars in two-way trade is an unusual challenge that requires intimate cooperation among myriad agencies on both sides of the border.
As for counternarcotics cooperation, mutual distrust has been a challenge. However,
responding to President Calderón’s openness, the United States began an unprecedented level of support in 2008 under the Merida Initiative;
since then, the program has included $2.3 billion for criminal justice, police, anticorruption, and related civil society and law enforcement assistance. When President Peña Nieto took office in 2012, he centralized and limited some of the cooperation that began under Calderón.
Although that cooperation between the two governments continues, the Mexican authorities resisted Guzmán’s extradition to the United States after his arrest in February 2014 and initially rebuffed US help to recapture him last month, which indicates Mexico’s openness under the Peña Nieto administration.29
Particularly under a PRI government, which has been accused of corruption and has historically engaged in truces with the narcotrafficking organizations, US cooperation will be circumscribed and scrutinized. Although US officials will continue to find opportunities to aid Mexico’s antidrug efforts, strengthening the rule of law, getting tough on organized crime, and fighting corruption requires a strong national commitment, without which US assistance will fail.
The United States can be a partner in helping Mexico achieve security through the rule of law, just as the two countries have built mutually beneficial economic relations. While the United States can take the lead in using asymmetric law enforcement tools to confront organized crime, the reform of federal, state, and local police and of the justice system in Mexico can only be achieved through the political will of Mexico’s national leaders. Invigorating a bona fide security strategy in Mexico will enhance security and prosperity in both countries.
Conclusion
Fighting organized crime and drug trafficking and promoting the rule of law will never be easy—
even less so in a country with a history of weak institutions and whose northern neighbor is the world’s largest consumer of illicit drugs.
Nevertheless, if Mexico is going to take its place as a prosperous country in a globalized world, it will have to invest both political capital and money to build a criminal justice system that will apply the rule of law against violence and corruption.
President Peña Nieto should recognize by now that his plan to put security issues on the back burner and pursue a social and economic agenda was never realistic. El Chapo’s escape and the atrocities committed against Mexicans by
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 7 criminals demand a genuine national strategy.
Peña Nieto has more than three years left in his term as president. Although his political situation is weak and his economic policies have produced mixed results, tending to the essential security of Mexico and its people cannot wait for his successor.
About the Authors
Roger F. Noriega is a former US ambassador to the Organization of American States and assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs (2001–05) and is currently a visiting fellow at AEI and managing director of Visión Américas LLC, a Washington, DC–based firm with US and foreign clients. Felipe Trigos is a research analyst at Visión Américas LLC.
Notes
1. In a February 2014 interview for Univision, President Enrique Peña Nieto told León Krauze that if Guzmán escaped again it would be “unforgivable.”
See Enrique Peña Nieto, interview by León Krauze, Univision, February 26, 2014, www.youtube.com/
watch?v=gvs8qGrA1Co.
2. Enrique Peña Nieto, “Recuperar la paz y libertad de los mexicanos” [Restoring the Peace and Freedom of Mexicans], El Universal, May 14, 2012, www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/847036.html.
3. Roger F. Noriega, “Showdown in Jalisco Exposes Mexico’s Faulty Antidrug Efforts,” American Enterprise Institute, May 5, 2015, www.aei.org/
publication/show-down-in-jalisco-exposes-mexicos- faulty-anti-drug-efforts/.
4. Doris Gómora, Dennis A. García, and Marcos Muédano, “Cárteles, la nueva era” [Cartels, The New Era], El Universal, May 18, 2015, http://archivo.
eluniversal.com.mx/nacion-mexico/2015/impreso/
carteles-la-nueva-era-226119.html.
5. Paris Martínez, “El secuestro se dispara 52.7%
durante la gestión de Peña Nieto,” Animal Político, March 24, 2015, www.animalpolitico.com/2015/03/
el-secuestro-se-dispara-52-7-durante-la-gestion-de- pena-nieto/.
6. Fabiola Martínez, “Cifras oficiales revelan un aumento en los casos de secuestro denunciados”
[Official Figures Show an Increase in Reported Cases of Kidnapping], La Jornada, July 22, 2015, www.jornada.unam.mx/2015/07/22/politica/008n1 pol.
7. Leo Zuckermann, “31 meses del sexenio de Peña:
23,758 ejecuciones” [31 Months of Peña Nieto’s Administration: 23,758 Executions], Excelsior,
August 10, 2015, www.excelsior.com.mx/opinion/
leo-zuckermann/2015/08/10/1039351.
8. Ibid.
9. Roger F. Noriega and Felipe Trigos, “Why Isn’t Mexico’s Security Strategy Working?,” American Enterprise Institute, June 12, 2014, www.aei.org/
publication/why-isnt-mexicos-security-strategy- working/.
10. “Ante la violencia, el gobierno federal active ahora el ‘operativo Edomex'” [Because of Violence, the Federal Government Activates ‘Operation Edomex’], CNN Mexico, March 31, 2014, http://
mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2014/03/31/ante-la- violencia-el-gobierno-federal-activa-ahora-el- operativo-edomex.
11. “Los comisionados en Tamaulipas” [The Commissioners in Tamaulipas], Hoy Tamaulipas, May 19, 2014, www.hoytamaulipas.net/notas/
131459/Los-comisionados-en-Tamaulipas.html.
12. David Agren, “Mexico: Burned Bodies Likely of 43 Missing Students,” USA Today, November 7, 2014, www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/
11/07/mexico-missing-students/18669187/.
13. Roger F. Noriega, “Showdown in Jalisco Exposes Mexico’s Faulty Antidrug Efforts,” American Enterprise Institute, May 5, 2015, www.aei.org/
publication/show-down-in-jalisco-exposes-mexicos- faulty-anti-drug-efforts/.
14. María Amparo Casar, México: Anatomía de la Corrupción [Mexico: Anatomy of Corruption], Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad, May 20, 2015, http://imco.org.mx/politica_buen_gobierno/
mexico-anatomia-de-la-corrupcion/.
15. Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2014 Mexico,” www.
transparency.org/cpi2014/results.
16. María Amparo Casar, Mexico: Anatomy of Corruption; and Institute for Economics and Peace, Global Peace Index 2015 (New York, June 2015), www.visionofhumanity.org/sites/default/files/
Global%20Peace%20Index%20Report%202015_0.
pdf.
17. Enrique Sánchez, “Peña Nieto promulga reforma que da paso al Sistema Nacional Anticorrupción”
[Peña Nieto Enacts Reform to Establish the National Anti-Corruption System], Excelsior, May 28, 2015, www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/2015/05/28/1026 312.
18. World Justice Project, “Rule of Law Index 2015:
Mexico,” http://data.worldjusticeproject.org/#/
groups/MEX.
19. “Rafael Caro Quintero, Infamous Mexican Drug Lord, Released after 28 Years in Prison,” CBS News, August 9, 2013, www.cbsnews.com/news/rafael- caro-quintero-infamous-mexican-drug-lord- released-after-28-years-in-prison/.
20. “Un tribunal 'reactiva' la acusación de homicidio contra Caro Quintero” [A Tribunal “Reactivates” the Homicide Charges against Caro Quintero], CNN Mexico, January 16, 2015, http://mexico.cnn.com/
nacional/2015/01/16/un-tribunal-reactiva-la- acusacion-de-homicidio-contra-caro-quintero.
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 8 21. Duncan Tucker, “Mexico Captures, Releases,
Then Recaptures ‘El Menchito,’ Son of Powerful Drug Lord,” Vice News, July 2, 2015, https://
news.vice.com/article/mexico-captures-releases- then-recaptures-el-menchito-son-of-powerful-drug- lord; and “Reaprehenden a Rodrigo Vallejo”
[Rodrigo Vallejo Recaptured], Informador.mx, June 1, 2015, www.informador.com.mx/mexico/2015/
595313/6/reaprehenden-a-rodrigo-vallejo.htm.
22. “Estos son los 10 puntos que anunció Peña Nieto en respuesta al caso Ayotzinapa” [These Are the 10 Points that Peña Nieto Announced in Response to Ayotzinapa], Animal Político, November 28, 2014, www.animalpolitico.com/2014/11/pena-nieto- acuerdo-seguridad-comision-anuncio-mensaje- palacio-nacional/.
23. “Permanecen atoradas 12 iniciativas que envió Peña Nieto al Senado” [12 Initiatives Sent by Peña Nieto Remain Stuck in the Senate], SDPnoticias, July 27, 2015, www.sdpnoticias.com/nacional/
2015/07/27/permanecen-atoradas-12-iniciativas- que-envio-pena-nieto-al-senado.
24. “Tenemos la Policía que merecemos?” [Do We Have the Police that We Deserve?], Causa en Común, August 5, 2015, www.miguelcarbonell.com/
docencia/Tenemos_la_polic_a_que_merecemos_U na_radiograf_a_de_las_polic_as_de_las_entidade s_federativas.shtml.
25. Jorge Fernández Menéndez, “El general tiene la palabra” [The General Has the Floor], Excelsior, July 9, 2015, www.excelsior.com.mx/opinion/jorge- fernandez-menendez/2015/07/09/1033736.
26. Lorena López, “Dan ‘tijeretazo’ de 26% al gasto de la Gendarmería” [They Cut 26% of the
Gendarmerie’s Budget], Milenio, May 3, 2015, www.milenio.com/policia/Dan-tijeretazo-gasto- Gendarmeria-recorte-seguridad-Segob-PF-recursos- operativos_0_511148903.html.
27. “Relación México-EU, de las más robustas en el mundo: Wayne” [Mexico-US Relation, One of the Most Robust in the World: Wayne], UNOTV, May 5, 2015, www.unotv.com/noticias/internacional/
detalle/relacion-mexico-eu-mas-robusta-wayne- 261630/.
28. President Peña Nieto’s appointment as PRI president of Manlio Fabio Beltrones, a powerful politician from Sonora state and member of the party’s “old guard,” may consolidate the power of the PRI beyond 2018.
29. Luis de la Barreda Solórzano, “La fuga
imposible” [The Impossible Escape], Excelsior, July 16, 2015, www.excelsior.com.mx/opinion/luis-de-la- barreda-solorzano/2015/07/16/1034931.