Drug traffickers attempting to influence Mexican politics, attorney general says

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/01/04/news/Mexico-Violence.php


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MEXICO CITY: Drug traffickers have tried to influence political campaigns in Mexico by intimidating and even kidnapping candidates and trying to steer election results, the attorney general said.
Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said in remarks released by his office Friday that drug gangs have tried to influence politics in the border states of Baja California and Tamaulipas, the western state of Michoacan, and other parts of the Gulf and Pacific coasts.
"We have evidence, complaints from candidates who were kidnapped or intimidated, or who received threats intended to influence the results of an election and the behavior of candidates," he said.
The cartels also have co-opted or intimidated local police forces in recent years as they engage in bloody turf battles that have led to a sharp rise in killings related to drugs and organized crime. Medina Mora said such killings rose in 2007 to 2,500 from 2,350 in 2006.
"There are municipal police forces that have collapsed, that function more as an aide to organized crime than as protection for the public," Medina Mora said, according to a transcript of remarks he made to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Shortly after taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon sent out thousands of soldiers to battle the criminals in states plagued by drug-trafficking violence.