By JOEL MILLMAN and JOSE DE CORDOBA
COLIMA, Mexico -- The candidacy of Mario Anguiano, running for governor in a state election here Sunday, says a lot about Mexican politics amid the rise of the drug cartels.
A brother of the candidate is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Mexico for peddling methamphetamine. Another Anguiano is serving 27 years in a Texas prison for running a huge meth ring. A few weeks ago, a hand-painted banner hung on a highway overpass cited the Zetas, the bloodthirsty executioners for the Gulf Cartel drug gang, praising the candidate: "The Zetas support you, and we are with you to the death."
Mr. Anguiano says his meth-dealing brother was just an addict who sold small amounts to support his habit. He says the man jailed in Texas, reported by local media to be his cousin, may or may not be a relative. "If he is my cousin, I've never met him," he says. Denying any involvement with traffickers, he says the supposed Zetas endorsement was just a dirty trick by his election rivals.
If so, it backfired. In the weeks after the banner made local headlines, new polls showed Mr. Anguiano pulling ahead in the race. He is expected to be elected governor on Sunday.
The reaction suggests how blasé some voters have become about allegations of ties between their politicians and the drug underworld, as Mexico prepares to elect a new lower house of Congress, some state governors and many mayors. This, even as political experts and law-enforcement people worry that violent drug gangs are increasingly bankrolling a wide range of politicians' campaigns across Mexico, in return for turning a blind eye to their activities.
Cartel Turf Wars
The election comes amid President Felipe Calderón's all-out war on drug gangs, which wield armies of private gunmen and account for the bulk of illegal drugs sold in the U.S. The conservative president has deployed 45,000 troops to fight the gangs. In bloody confrontations between his forces and the cartels, and especially in turf battles among the cartels, an estimated 12,000 lives have been lost since Mr. Calderón took office in late 2006. June was the deadliest month yet: 769 drug-related killings, according to a count by Mexican newspapers.
Until recent years, Mexican drug traffickers focused the bulk of their bribery efforts on law enforcement rather than politicians. Their increasing involvement in local politics -- in town halls and state capitals -- is a response, experts say, to the national-level crackdown, to changes in the nature of the drug trade itself and to the evolution of Mexico's young democracy.
Mario Anguiano's campaign for governor in Mexico reveals the problems of power in a country with increasing narcotics trafficking and violence. WSJ's Joel Millman reports.
Starting in 2000, a system of fiercely contested multiparty elections began to replace 71 years of one-party rule, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. "In this newly competitive, moderately democratic system, it takes serious money to run a political campaign," says James McDonald, a Mexico expert at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. "This has given the narcos a real entree into politics, by either running for office themselves or bankrolling candidates."
In addition, the gangs have evolved from simple drug-smuggling bands into organized-crime conglomerates with broad business interests, from local drug markets to extortion, kidnapping, immigrant smuggling and control of Mexico's rich market in knockoff compact discs. "There is more at stake than before. They need to control municipal governments," says Edgardo Buscaglia, a professor of law and economics at both Columbia University and Mexico's ITAM University.
Because of the federal crackdown and the warfare between rival cartels the drug traffickers also need more political allies than ever before.
Politicians who won't cooperate sometimes are threatened. On Monday, in the drug-producing state of Guerrero, a grenade blew up a sport-utility vehicle belonging to Jorge Camacho, a congressional candidate from President Calderón's National Action Party, or PAN. A message next to the destroyed car said, "Look, you S.O.B. candidate, hopefully, you will understand it is better you get out, you won't get a second chance to live."
Mr. Buscaglia says criminal groups' one-two punch of bribes and threats has given them either influence or control in 72% of Mexico's municipalities. He bases his estimate on observation of criminal enterprises such as drug-dealing and child-prostitution rings that operate openly, ignored by police.
According to a September 2007 intelligence assessment by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the governors of the states of Veracruz and Michoacán had agreements with the Gulf Cartel allowing free rein to that large drug-trafficking gang. In return, said the report, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the cartel promised to reduce violence in Veracruz state and, in Michoacán, financed a gubernatorial race and many municipal campaigns across the state.
In Veracruz, the FBI report said, Gov. Fidel Herrera made a deal with the cartel letting it secure a drug route through the state. In an interview, Mr. Herrera said the allegation is "absolutely false, and has no basis in fact -- it never happened." The PRI politician said he has never had any dealings with a criminal organization and blamed a rival political operative, whom he declined to name, for trying to sabotage his career.
In Michoacán, the FBI report said, "in exchange for funding, the Gulf Cartel will be able to control the port of Lázaro Cárdenas, to continue to introduce cocaine and collect a 'tax'" from other Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.
Control of Ports
Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, the Michoacán governor from the leftist PRD party who was in the office when the FBI said the deal was made, says the allegation is "totally false." Mr. Cárdenas Batel, grandson of the former Mexican president for whom the port is named, said Mexican ports are controlled by federal agencies, so drug traffickers have nothing to gain from bribing state officials in connection with them.
His successor, the winner of the 2007 election, is Leonel Godoy, also of the PRD. He calls the FBI allegation "an infamy" with "not a shred of evidence or any proof," and said he had never met or cut deals with drug traffickers. Messrs. Cárdenas Batel and Godoy both say they had alerted authorities before the elections about the growing infiltration of drug traffickers in Michoacán.
None of the three men -- Messrs. Cárdenas Batel, Godoy and Herrera -- have been charged with any crime. U.S. intelligence documents have occasionally proved unreliable in the past.
Police agents in Mexico City stand guard in May after a group of top officials from Michoacán were detained due to their alleged ties to 'La Familia' drug cartel. Ten mayors and 17 other officials were detained.
The Gulf Cartel doesn't appear to be the only gang with alleged influence in Michoacán officialdom. In May, soldiers and federal police arrested 10 mayors, as well as 17 police chiefs and state security officials, including a man who was in charge of the state's police-training academy. They have been charged with collaborating with "La Familia," the state's violent homegrown drug gang. Those arrested, who have said they are innocent victims of political vendettas, represented all three of Mexico's main political parties. On Monday, three more people, including the mayor of Lázaro Cárdenas, were arrested and charged with the same offense, according to the attorney general's office.
Five hundred miles to the north in the wealthy Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza García, a mayoral candidate from President Calderón's party sparked a scandal in June when he was recorded telling a gathering of supporters that security in the town was "controlled by" members of one of Mexico's most fearsome drug cartels, the Beltran Leyva gang.
The candidate, Mauricio Fernandez, seemed to suggest he would be willing to negotiate with the Beltran Leyvas if elected. "Penetration by drug traffickers is for real, and they approach every candidate who they think may win," Mr. Fernandez was recorded saying. "In my case, I made it very clear to them that I didn't want blatant selling."
Mr. Fernandez has acknowledged the audiotape's authenticity, but says his statements were taken out of context and that he had never met with members of the Beltran Leyva cartel. He says the full tape captures him saying he would not negotiate with the drug traffickers. As the election nears, he leads polls by a wide margin.
Meanwhile, in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, Mayor David Monreal of the town of Fresnillo denied having anything to do with 14.5 tons of marijuana police found months ago in a chili-pepper-drying facility owned by his brother. Mr. Monreal, who plans to seek the governorship next year, said his political enemies planted the mammoth stash.
In the campaign, the state of Mexico's economy appears to trump the drug issue for many voters. The economy is shrinking amid slumps in oil production, in exports to the U.S., in tourism and in remittances from emigrants. Polls give the PRI, the party that ruled for seven decades, an advantage of about six percentage points.
The governing party has made President Calderon's campaign against drug traffickers its main theme, and polls show his policy of using the military in the effort is widely popular. But they also show a majority of Mexicans don't think he is winning the narco-war.
Drugs are certainly campaign fodder in the border state of Chihuahua, where former Ciudad Juárez Mayor Héctor Murguía is the PRI's candidate for a congressional seat. Two years ago, Mayor Murguía named as his chief of public security a businessman named Saulo Reyes Gamboa. Last year, Mr. Reyes was arrested by U.S. law-enforcement agents in El Paso, Texas, after allegedly paying someone he thought to be a corrupt U.S. federal officer to help smuggle drug loads. During the operation, federal agents found nearly half a ton of marijuana in a Texas house, which they say Mr. Reyes had arranged to smuggle from Mexico.
Mr. Reyes, who pleaded guilty and is now serving eight years in a federal prison in Kentucky, couldn't be reached for comment. Mayor Murguía says that he has had no involvement with the Juárez Cartel and that Mr. Reyes never contributed "even five pesos" to support his political career.
Despite the bad publicity, Mr. Murguía is leading in polls and is expected to win Sunday -- not unlike Mr. Anguiano, the candidate in Colima with the supposed endorsement from the Zetas.
Talking Frankly
In Colima, the candidate for governor from President Calderón's party, Martha Sosa Govea, hasn't faced any narco-tie allegations. But there has been plenty of comment about her protegé, national assembly candidate Virgilio Mendoza Amezcua, thanks to a tape of him talking frankly about politics and drug traffickers, recorded by members of a rival party he was trying to win over.
[Drug-Cartel Links Haunt Election]
"You don't imagine how many 'nice' people have relations with those drug-trafficking bastards, and through them, the bastards bring things to you," he said on the tape. "They try to seduce you....They got close to me like they get close to half the world, and they sent me money."
Mr. Mendoza declined to comment, but has previously denied he took any money from the cartels. Ms. Sosa said the tape might have been doctored, and in any case, "just because they have him on a tape getting an offer of dirty money, there's still nothing on tape proving he accepted it."
The tape was turned over to federal authorities to determine whether it had been altered. Citing the proximity to the election, the Attorney General's office declined to comment on any of the drug cases.
Colima, though largely exempt from the narco-violence raging in neighboring states, has a reputation as a haven for traffickers, a sleepy place where residents don't ask questions about rich new neighbors. In the 1980s, Colima was home to a gentleman rancher from Guadalajara whom everybody knew as Pedro Orozco. He spent lavishly on schools, gave to charity and hung around with politicians.
In 1991, Mr. Orozco was gunned down in a firefight in Guadalajara, then Mexico's drug capital. It turned out the generous man-about-town was actually Manuel Salcido Uzueta, a top drug capo better known as Cochiloco, meaning the Mad Pig.
Ever since, Colima residents have grown cynical about the influence of drug gangs in politics. "Corruption? Drug ties? They say that about everyone who runs for office. Who can you believe?" says Salvador Ochoa, a local lawyer.
Ms. Sosa has been hammering her opponent, Mr. Anguiano, with claims that he has links to drug trafficking. But, she concedes, the response of many voters is, "Poor guy, why don't they just leave him alone?"
Write to Joel Millman at joel.millman@wsj.com and Jose de Cordoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com
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