Mexico’s President Says He's Not Backing Down From Drug War

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Peña Nieto:

Mexican president says he will integrate prevention, investment and enforcement programs.

Newly elected President Enrique Pena Nieto announced he will continue combating against illegal drug production and trafficking in Mexico, despite the legalization of marijuana in two U.S. states, as well as liberalized use for medical purpose in others.

When asked if votes to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado would make him rethink Mexico’s drug war-policy, Pena Nieto stated that “the short answer is no,” also adding he remains personally opposed to legalization.

“My government will continue mounting a real fight against the trafficking of marijuana and all other drugs,” said Pena Nieto.

Instead, he has proposed focusing on reducing violence in Mexico rather than capturing top drug lords, a change from his predecessor, Felipe Calderon. Many have view that as a signal that as long as drug gangs don’t attack civilians, they would be left alone.

Murder, extortion and kidnapping skyrocketed under Calderon, with some estimates reaching 60,000 drug-related killings during his six-year term. Top Pena Nieto campaign aide Luis Videgaray, now secretary of the treasury, said in November that the U.S. legalization votes would complicate Mexico’s anti-drug efforts.

Pena Nieto said his government “in no way will abandon the fight.” He said he is committed to putting up a united front against organized crime, pushing for better coordination among local, state and federal police forces and completing the overhaul of Mexico’s broken and corrupt justice system. Calderon tried both with little success.

However, Pena Nieto said he believes he will get better results by integrating prevention, investment and enforcement programs.

The new president, whose inauguration on Dec.1 brought back Mexico’s longtime-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party after a 12-year hiatus, has enjoyed a considerable honeymoon in his first week in the rough-and-tumble halls of congress. He got leaders of the top two opposing parties to sign his Pact for Mexico, a list of five themes and 95 promises that he has set out to complete during his six-year term, including fiscal, educational and social security reforms.

Pena Nieto proposed an ambitious plan for the government to retake the public education system, now run by a closed and autocratic teachers' union and its long-time leader, Elba Esther Gordillo, often called the most powerful woman in Mexico and a symbol of the country's corrupt, old-style politics. He also announced that his administration would reduce the salaries of middle- and high-ranking federal managers by 5 percent.

Pena Nieto said he would make no promises for his first 100 days in office. He has yet to flesh out other reforms, including opening up Mexico's telecommunications industry, and bringing new private investment to Mexico's crucial but creaking state-owned oil industry.

"I've set my horizon for a year," he said, "... that in a year's time we can achieve agreements and consensus, if not unanimous then at least among the majority for the constitutional and legal changes necessary to put the reforms in place."

The president added that he never set a goal of reducing crime by half in the first year, contrary to widely circulated reports.

He has laid out a progressive and in many ways populist agenda, but surrounded himself with foreign-educated technocrats and old-guard figures from his party, known as the PRI, which ruled Mexico with an autocratic style for 71 years before being voted out of office in 2000.

"The basic question is, how will a conservative cabinet move a progressive agenda forward?" wrote economist and sociologist Jorge Zepeda Patterson in a weekend opinion piece for the newspaper El Universal. "Along the way, the authoritarian tendencies of the political operatives could win out and end up distorting, disguising or emptying out the content of the democratic proposals."

Pena Nieto said the multi-party pact and political cooperation in passing a labor reform measure even before he took office signal a new optimism for the country.

"That proves there's greater will and commitment," he said, "a political disposition on the part of all forces to really push the changes Mexico needs to unleash its potential for growth."

Based on reporting by the Associated Press.

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