Once a refuge, Mexico City has become a hunting ground where journalists end up reporting on the assassinations of their colleagues — and wondering who will be next.
In Mexico, Hunted Down for Speaking Out
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PRI
Expect the Barometer to Rise in Mexico
Over 90 percent of Mexicans have lost faith in their political parties. What comes next?
Enrique Pena Nieto and Mexico’s Drug War Opening
On December 1, Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) assumed the Mexican presidency amid a flurry of protests against the party, whose previous 70-year rule defined the country’s authoritarian past. Yet it’s difficult to imagine that the new president’s term could be worse than the unmitigated disaster of his predecessor’s, which was marked by a dramatic militarization of Mexico’s drug war, widespread human rights abuses, and tens of thousands of deaths.
Mexico’s Ruling Party Rebound
In December 2010, at the end of a study abroad semester in Puebla, some students and I organized a student expression project. Hundreds of students wrote complaints or ideas for their university, state, or country. Despite discouraging looks, I posted these note cards in a busy pathway at my public university the week that the campus was celebrating the centennial of the Mexican revolution.
Mexico’s Battle over Oil
On April 8, President Felipe Calderon dropped a political bomb on the Mexican political scene. The Senate received an executive initiative that would fundamentally change the structure and operations of the oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Key operations of the state-owned enterprise would pass into private hands.
Mexico’s Democratic Transition Still Incomplete
As the results of the July 2 presidential elections in Mexico head to the courts, it could be several days or even weeks before the final winner is determined. The current vote counts have given a razor thin advantage to Felipe Calderón of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), to which incumbent President Vicente Fox belongs. Still, with the margin well under one percent and with irregularities in the vote-counting process being challenged, progressive former Mexico City mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), might conceivably eke out a victory. While U.S. newspapers declare Calderón the winner, Mexican electoral authorities have yet to do so, recognizing the tribunal that is reviewing disputes as the final arbiter for the race.