Politics: Mobs targeting local politicians
With roughly four and a half months to go before Election Day 2018, violence against politicians is reaching unprecedented levels; just since September 19 local politicians including current and former municipal presidents, and those looking to run for such offices, have been murdered. The fact that such violence is being directed at the local level partially reflects the extent to which organized crime has become increasingly atomized into gangs for whom control of local governments and police departments has become increasingly indispensable to their focus on crimes such as extortion, kidnapping and robbery.
Local governments and politicians have long been in the crosshairs of organized crime, but this campaign season it is also magnified by the extent to which Mexico's electoral calendar has been changed to assure that an overwhelming number of state and municipal offices will be filled on the same day the country elects a new president and congress.
This poses an obvious need for heightened protection for candidates and campaigns, but less obvious is how and by whom such security should be provided. That issue demands a serious discussion, which in recent days has tended to revolve around a complaint by the future presidential candidate for "Mexico in Front", who charged that he had been trailed by personnel from the country's main civilian intelligence agency (Cisen). The matter of by whom and how such security is to be provided involves broader issues regarding the very delicate question as to whether there are instances in which intelligence agencies such as Cisen can legitimately monitor political activities, and whether other agencies such as the Federal Police and/or the Presidential Guard would be more appropriate for security services, as well as how to combine a minimum of security with a maximum degree of respect for political freedoms?
If the federal government and political parties want to limit the threat of uncontrolled violence affecting election processes - so far three people competing for nominations to municipal office have been killed in the states of Guerrero and Mexico - they must jointly define the security protocols that minimize such risks based on a risk map, which the Cisen would be expected to develop.
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