During the last couple of weeks, there have been clashes between community polices and alleged members of organized crime at several Michoac\u00e1n locations. At the same time, there have been violent protests headed both by teachers and students, for example, the local Office of Education Secretary takeover, organized by the 18th section of the Union of Education Workers (SNTE) or the roadblocks and robbing of private automobiles done by teacher-training students. Although the media has focused on Guerrero and Oaxaca, Michoac\u00e1n has not ceased to be a hot-button issue for governance and rule of law in Mexico.<\/p>\n
According to CIDAC\u2019s crime index of the last two years, Michoac\u00e1n is one of the states where the number of serious crimes (kidnapping, extortion and murder) hasn\u2019t decreased at all. Factors present in Michoac\u00e1n such as political instability, abuse in the system of \u201cuses and customs\u201d, religious beliefs and the \u201cepidemic\u201d of community policing only tend to enhance the inherent hazards of organized crime. Regarding community police, whose most representative case is Cher\u00e1n \u2013 where inhabitants try to fight the so-called \u201ctalamontes\u201d \u2013 other municipalities have imitated narco defense tactics \u2013 even though drug traffickers argue that those polices do not spontaneously come up. Let us not forget another jewel in the crown of \u201cuses and customs\u201d: Nueva Jerusal\u00e9n. In addition, the absence of Governor Vallejo is worth a mention. It took weeks for him to take leave of absence before being substituted by the acting Governor Jes\u00fas Reyna. In any case, Reyna does not face a promising panorama.<\/p>\n
A common factor among the three states in which public attention has focused in the last couple of weeks is the absence of a local government that is able to preserve governability. The risk is that this phenomenon might repeat itself in other entities and may bring the harmful \u201cfailed State\u201d argument back. This situation should be a source of concern for the government. Without wishing to be alarmist, it\u2019s imperative to point out the possibility that the conflicts could get out of hand and no federal authority may come their way. It\u2019s true that many of the aforementioned issues would be the responsibility of the Michoac\u00e1n administration, but some others would require the immediate attention from federal authorities, which still don\u2019t have a functional strategy.<\/p>\n
In 2006, a few days after taking office, former President Calder\u00f3n started the Conjunto Michoac\u00e1n Operation, which sent over 5 thousand troops to fight organized crime in the state. The results of that strategy were pyrrhic. As Pe\u00f1a Nieto assumed power, a series of changes such as a Federal Police retreat and a larger participation of the Army can be observed, but that does not necessarily mean a modification in the strategic plans designed in the previous administration. Rather, and this should be a concerning issue, they reveal the new government\u2019s absence of a strategy. This threatens the state\u2019s governability as well as it allows us to state that this could end in a major crisis for the current administration. Will Michoac\u00e1n, Guerrero and Oaxaca (and any other state that might face the same issues) prove to be the Achilles\u2019 heel in the current administration\u2019s rhetoric about a peaceful and prosperous Mexico?<\/p>\n
CIDAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During the last couple of weeks, there have been clashes between
\ncommunity polices and alleged members of organized crime at several
\nMichoac\u00e1n locations. At the same time, there have been violent protests
\nheaded both by teachers and students, for example, the local Office of
\nEducation Secretary takeover, organized by the 18th section of the Union
\n of Education Workers (SNTE) or the roadblocks and robbing of private
\nautomobiles done by teacher-training students. Although the media has
\nfocused on Guerrero and Oaxaca, Michoac\u00e1n has not ceased to be a
\nhot-button issue for governance and rule of law in Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-3141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-political-analysis","tag-political-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3141"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4610,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions\/4610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}