Calderon's Popularity Hinges on Success of Anti-Drug Effort

By Marifeli Pérez-Stable and Landen Romei
Latin America Advisor July 28, 2008

Originally published in Marifeli Pérez-Stable’s “Around the Hemisphere” column for the Dialogue's daily Latin America Advisor

WASHINGTON, DC—When Felipe Calderón assumed the presidency on December 2, 2006, his legitimacy was in question. On July 2, 2006, he had won the narrowest of victories over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who cried fraud and proclaimed himself the "legitimate president." Calderón had to confront the perception that the contested election dented his authority. In addition, he had inherited a national crisis of mounting violence and popular distrust in the government’s efficacy.

Law and order policies are popular everywhere, and so it was in Mexico with Calderón's campaign against narcotraffickers. Initially, troops were sent to Michoacan and Tijuana and, by the end of 2007, the offensive was broadened to ten states. Calderón deployed the army instead of the notoriously corrupt federal police. The government soon claimed some success. In March 2007, Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna announced falling murder rates in Michoacan (72 percent) and Tijuana (56 percent). In early 2007, nearly three quarters of Mexicans approved the use of the army against the narcotraffickers. Six months after his inauguration, Mexicans supported Calderón to the tune of 68 percent.

However, an all-out assault on the drug cartels has not yet yielded an overall decline in violence. The death toll is running at nearly 10 a day. On June 23, gangs killed a record-breaking 38 people in 24 hours. In 2007, there were up to 2,600 drug-related killings, up from 2,000 in 2006. The projected toll in 2008 is around 3,500. Moreover, upwards of 500 police officers have been killed by gangs thus far this year. Neither have extraditions to the United States—60 in 2006, 83 in 2007—diminished the spiral of violence. Calderón is asking citizens for patience, noting that increased violence is the cartels' last resort. All the same, a poll in May showed only 6 percent having high levels of confidence in the president compared with 35 percent just two months earlier.

In October 2007, Calderón and US President George W. Bush announced the Mérida Initiative, an aid package to support Calderón's war on drugs. After ample debate on conditionality and appropriations, the US Congress approved the initiative last month without any strings attached. Most of the $400 million allotted by the US in FY 2008 goes to the military; $73.5 million are tagged for judicial reform, institution building, and other areas strengthening the rule of law. Yet human rights advocates have decried the initiative's focus on military methods without sufficient protections for human rights.

After Plan Colombia was launched in 2000, violence also worsened at first before declining since 2004. So, perhaps, we should wait on Calderón's offensive. Yet, the president stands on shaky political ground. If his offensive with the help of the Mérida Initiative reduces violence while upholding the delicate balance between security and human rights, Calderón will again enjoy high approval rates. If violence does not subside, nothing will stop the downward slide.

Marifeli Pérez-Stable is Vice President for Democratic Governance at the Inter-American Dialogue. Landen Romei is a Program Assistant at the Dialogue.