Författare: Amalendu Misra Professor of International Politics Lancaster

It’s a season of political change in Mexico. On June 2, millions of Mexicans will head to the polls to elect a new president, state governors and members of federal and local congresses, municipality administrations and town councils. In total, the elections will see nearly 21,000 positions filled.

However, Mexico’s election season is also one of political violence. Between 2018 and March 2024, there were 1,709 targeted attacks, murders, assassinations and threats against people working in politics or government, or against government and party facilities. Most of these attacks occurred in the run-up to an election; this year will be no different.

In fact, if the current statistics are anything to go by, Mexico’s 2024 election season is likely to be the country’s deadliest on record. In the first two months of the year, 33 people involved in politics were assassinated. And that figure is rising steadily as the elections approach.

Violence against Mexican politicians is common. But the country’s powerful organised gangs step up political violence during election season as they look to ensure compliance from incoming candidates and secure business opportunities.

Mexico’s most famous political assassination took place 30 years ago, in the build-up to the 1994 general election. Luis Donaldo Colosio, a charismatic presidential candidate who vowed to reform the country’s historically autocratic political culture, was shot and killed during a campaign rally in the border city of Tijuana.

Luis Donaldo Colosio waving to reporters in Mexico City in 1993.
Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo

He was slain by Mario Aburto Martínez, an apparently non-political factory worker. But critics have long rejected the official finding that Aburto acted alone. They argue that drug cartel leaders and those with vested political interests were behind the assassination because they worried about a prospective crackdown on their activities.

Colosio’s reformist agenda advocated for a more leftward turn, away from pro-market privatisation policies. This undermined both the criminal fraternity and the established political order.

It’s not just high-ranking politicians that are at risk. Mexican politicians at all levels are repeatedly targeted by violence linked to organised crime, especially those who hold or seek regional positions. On April 20 2024, for example, two mayoral candidates were killed in separate attacks in different parts of the country.

One of them, Alberto Garcia, was running for mayor of San Jose Independencia in the southern state of Oaxaca. The victims of such violence are distributed throughout all political positions and parties. But the gangs most often target the candidate challenging the incumbent, fearing a change in the status quo.

Gangs have much to lose

Elections offer good business opportunities for Mexico’s criminal organisations. In the past, their economic interests were strictly confined to the production and retailing of narcotics. However, in recent years, they have diversified their economic interests and are now looking to exploit new opportunities.

In Mexico, municipal authorities enjoy considerable economic power. They receive state and federal funding to undertake infrastructural projects in their areas, such as building roads, schools and hospitals. The gangs have begun to demand they be the purveyors of these projects, which can be mismanaged and the allocated funds siphoned off.

Studies have shown that drug cartels exert their will not only through political assassinations, but also by putting up their own candidates or financing the campaigns of candidates who will allow them to operate. If there is any opposition from rival candidates, it often leads to an open bloodbath.

This sentiment was acknowledged in early April by Mexico’s outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He said: “They [the cartels and criminal gangs] make an agreement and say, ‘this person is going to be mayor; we don’t want anyone else to register to run’, and anybody who does, well, they know [what to expect]”.

Another factor behind the accelerating political violence in Mexico is the fragmentation of the country’s criminal organisations. Previously, there was a clear vertical organisation of cartel hierarchy. This ensured that one particular cartel could put up its candidate for a specific political post with little meaningful opposition.

Mexican federal police forces maintaining order in the violent border city of Ciudad Juárez.
Frontpage/Shutterstock

However, Mexico’s main cartels have split into separate branches. As they have done so, they have come to meet greater competition and the fielding of candidates from opposite sides. This has led to more direct violence against political candidates contesting for the same post.

Simply put, the ongoing violence against politicians and political candidates in Mexico reflects the struggle for territorial consolidation and lucrative business opportunities among various organised criminal gangs.

Fears of earning the wrath of the criminal gangs often prevents well-intentioned politicians from running for public office. In some of the country’s most rural reaches, where organised criminal gangs are at their most powerful, the cartel’s preferred picks have in the past won races unopposed. And the wave of violence ahead of the 2024 elections has already forced dozens of candidates across multiple states to back out of their races fearing for their lives.

In a region of the world that is marred by coups, counter-coups and dictatorships, Mexico was always a shining example of a nation adhering to strict democratic credentials. That record now risks being tarnished by the violent intervention of criminal gangs in the country’s political processes. Läs mer…

Gangs have an enduring presence in Latin America. They have existed as power brokers, illicit economic actors and spoilers in the developmental processes of several countries. And yet, despite their power and influence, the gangs have long been regarded merely as irritants – always present but never strong enough to rock the boat.

Fast forward to the present day and we are presented with a whole new configuration. Criminal gangs have become a critical power to reckon with. From island nations like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago to big economic powerhouses such as Brazil and Mexico, gang menace is spreading fast.

In some instances, gangs have come to challenge the very existence of governments in the region. Haiti’s criminal gangs unseated the government in early 2024 and took the country to ransom. And in Ecuador, which was once lauded as one of the safest countries in Latin America, the government is fighting a battle for its survival against gangs who are fast encroaching upon the power of the state.

Gangs have become such a serious problem in Latin America that they are damaging the region’s economic performance. Research by the International Monetary Fund suggests that bringing the crime level in Latin America down to the world average would increase the region’s annual economic growth by 0.5 percentage points – around a third of Latin America’s growth between 2017 and 2019.

Latin America’s criminal gangs have long been a neglected issue. But not anymore. Amid mounting concern about criminal violence and a low level of trust in the police, the governments of some Latin American and Caribbean countries are enacting states of emergency, putting through policies they would normally not be authorised to do, for the safety and protection of their citizens.

Colloquially known as mano dura (Spanish for “firm hand” or “iron fist”), this approach involves suspending the fundamental rights of the citizenry by giving the military and law enforcement agencies the power to arrest, incarcerate and deport anyone found to be involved with criminal gangs. It also denies access to legal measures to establish the arrested person’s right to a fair and open trial.

Sprawling authoritarianism

Mano dura measures were introduced to Latin America in March 2022 by El Salvador’s charismatic albeit controversial president, Nayib Bukele. Following a spike in gang violence that left 87 people dead in a single weekend, Bukele curtailed the right to be informed of the reason for arrest and access to a lawyer upon being detained.

By February 2024, more than 76,000 people – almost 2% of the Salvadoran population — had been detained under the provisions of mano dura. Critics have decried the crackdown as a gross human rights violation. Troops have rounded people up for having tattoos and being in poor neighbourhoods, leading to the detention of thousands of innocent people in overcrowded Salvadorian jails.

Instead of taking measures to prevent abusive arrests, Bukele has publicly backed the security forces. There are also few independent judges in the country after Bukele’s party passed a reform in 2021 that gave the supreme court the power to remove judges and force them into retirement.

Nevertheless, many people in El Salvador have accepted the crackdown with open arms.

Thanks to Bukele’s firm-handed approach to gangs and organised crime, El Salvador has gone from being the murder capital of the world to one of the safest countries in Latin America. In February, basking in soaring approval ratings, Bukele was re-elected as president in a landslide election.

With soaring approval ratings, gang-busting Bukele comfortably secured a second term a president of El Salvador.
Bienvenido Velasco/EPA

Mano dura politics are fast gaining reception across the region. In late April 2024, Ecuadorians voted in favour of continuing with a state of emergency in a national referendum. This move gives the country’s president, Daniel Noboa, the power to deploy soldiers on the streets to fight “drug-fuelled violence and extradite criminals abroad”.

Citizens of democracies voluntarily demanding authoritarian measures in their structure of governance is rare. The only recent example occurred in 2018 when mass protests swept across Latin America. The protests led more South Americans to see autocratic governance as a necessity for maintaining law and order.

Read more:
Unrest in Latin America makes authoritarianism look more appealing to some

In much the same way, the current widespread support in Latin America for mano dura interventions is a product of two interrelated factors. The suffering population is at a breaking point. And there is a reckoning that only extreme authoritarian measures can address the challenges posed by the gangs.

The capacity of many Latin American states to protect – let alone promote – their foundational values is being compromised by gang violence. Given this backdrop, it is no wonder that fighting fire with fire to curtail the power and influence of criminal gangs is gaining approval.

It is too early to predict if other Latin American states groaning under gang menace will fully replicate the Salvadoran and Ecuadorean model. However, countries with even very low homicide rates like Bolivia, Argentina and Chile have all now adopted some mano dura policies.

The “Bukele model” is gaining approval and will probably become a mainstream policy option in this violent region. Läs mer…