Mexican drug cartels grow more violent in election year

As voters in Mexico get ready to go to the polls later this year to elect a new president, congress, and local leaders, politicians of all stripes are facing a unique level of murderous threats from drug cartels.

By James Blears

On July 1st, there will be a Presidential Election in Mexico, but there are also Congressional and local elections. Sixty-three mayors have been murdered during the six year tenure of this Government.

Most of these cases go unsolved and unresolved, with witnesses too terrified to testify against drug cartel gunmen, known as sicarios. The syndrome is knows as "Impunidad," or getting away with it.

Mexico's agonizing 12 year-long drug war, which has claimed more than 200,000 lives with 30,000 more people permanently missing, is not just about a 40 billion dollars annual illegal narcotics industry. It's insidiously evolved into organized crime ransacking the coffers of Municipal Governments nationwide and wielding a reign of terror over vast regions.

The governor of the western state of Jalisco, Aristotles Sandoval, has just warned that complicated and tragic days lie ahead. He also vows that Mexican authorities will do absolutely all that they can to combat the alarming rising levels of crime.

Many Mexicans have already given up hope, lamenting it's a losing battle in an ongoing war with no end in sight.

Report by James Blears