Assassinations, mayors threatened, car bombs, kidnappings, body parts hanging off bridges, drones with explosives.
For those who compile lists of violent crimes in Mexico, the past few weeks have felt worse than usual. There is a slightly higher pace of violence and the incidents seem a little more consequential than they were before. Yet, none of the incidents in recent weeks are so bad as to have dominated the national news beyond a single media cycle or changed the narrative about the security situation in any significant way.
The CJNG’s violent expansion continues to be a key driver of violence from Tijuana to Matamoros to Chiapas, as well as its home base in Jalisco and the surrounding states. The Sinaloa Cartel is violently competing with the CJNG across much of the country. However, a portion of the Sinaloa Cartel also seems to have found some sort of unofficial truce with the López Obrador government, reducing some clashes between the government and various factions. La Familia is gaining ground in Edomex. A variety of other groups and gangs, including various offshoots of the Gulf Cartel, make it impossible to describe the violence only as a result of a few big organizations.
In other words, the security situation feels the same as it has for six years or longer, just a hint worse than before in spite of statistics showing a decline in homicides in recent years.
In response, the president downplays all of the incidents, often blaming the victims or the media hype instead of addressing the criminal groups or his own failed security policies. This is partly just how AMLO operates, but also partly because the president is focused on the 2024 campaign with the election now one year away.
In recent weeks, AMLO has used his morning press conference to discuss local elections, the Morena primary, and the state of his political opponents. On Monday, he took 20 minutes to specifically target Xóchitl Gálvez, whose position within the field of candidates is rising and someone who AMLO views as a real threat in terms of her profile and ability to attract voters.
Three big questions hang over the issues above:
Does any violent incident break through the barrier and highlight the current security failures or does it all just remain background noise to the campaign, even as the numbers of victims and the threats to Mexico rise?
Do any of the criminal groups attempt to influence the national campaign? Tragically, the cartels will attack local mayors and journalists as they always do in an attempt to influence local dynamics. But if any cartel decides to make their influence a national issue, a spike of strategically targeted violence is possible, even in the capital. There is a real potential that the CJNG vs Sinaloa fight could go national if either group views the López Obrador government or one of the opposition political leaders as choosing sides.
How does the US campaign play into the Mexican election? Discussing the new Republican obsession with military action in Mexico deserves a whole separate essay, but the basic conclusion is that rhetoric is almost certainly likely to increase. The Republicans will respond and highlight major violent incidents in Mexico, even if AMLO tries to ignore them. The back and forth between the US and Mexican election debates over security issues is going to be a key narrative going into next year.