Mexico City:

Fighting the root causes of violent crime or going to war with powerful drug cartels? Mexico’s presidential candidates have proposed radically different strategies to deal with rampant insecurity.

Surveys show that some 450,000 people have been murdered in the Latin American country since 2006, and stopping the escalating bloodshed is a top priority for voters ahead of the June 2 election.

Ruling party candidate Claudia Scheinbaum hopes to continue outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s strategy of tackling the root causes of crime.

The controversial approach, dubbed “hugs not bullets” by left-wing populists, aims to reduce insecurity by fighting poverty and inequality.

“We are not declaring war (against the drug cartels), we are making peace. That is the big difference between the opposition and us,” Scheinbaum, who enjoys a significant lead in opinion polls, said recently.

Her main rival, Xochitl Galvez, has put insecurity at the center of her campaign, which she launched in March in Fresnillo, a city considered by residents to be Mexico’s worst. Dangerous city.

The outspoken entrepreneur and senator, who is running against Sheinbaum to become the country’s first female president, said “the embrace of criminals is over.”

“To keep Mexico free from fear, we will rein in our country’s most violent and aggressive criminal organizations,” she added.

Gangs such as notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel and its main rival, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, control large swathes of Mexico.

They are not only involved in drug trafficking but also in a variety of criminal activities, including smuggling, extortion and fuel theft.

More than 100,000 people are missing across the country, and murders and kidnappings occur every day.

Mexico’s homicide rate has remained above 23 per 100,000 inhabitants since 2016, higher than the Latin American average, according to crime think tank InSight Crime.

campaign promises

Galvez promised to catch the most wanted criminals, recruit more police officers and ensure they were adequately paid in a country where corruption is believed to be rife among poorly paid security personnel.

She vowed to double the size of the National Guard, withdraw soldiers from civilian projects to focus on fighting criminal groups, and build a new maximum-security prison.

Sheinbaum also pledged to strengthen the National Guard and Mexico’s intelligence agencies and improve coordination with police and prosecutors.

“The difference between the two of them is that Xochitel thinks she needs to be pursued more than Scheinbaum does,” Carlos Ramirez, a political risk expert at Integralia Consultores, told a roundtable hosted by the Wilson Center. Bad guy.”

Experts say whoever wins the election will face a difficult balance between meeting voters’ expectations for less crime and respecting rights.

Raúl Benítez, an expert on security and organized crime at the Carside think tank, said people wanted tough action on crime rather than “abuse”.

“You can’t fight crime by eradicating poverty. You can do that by using the right strategies to fight criminals,” he added.

Benitez said this would require coordination with judges, police, prosecutors and intelligence agencies, noting Scheinbaum’s success in this regard when he served as Mexico City mayor from 2018 to 2023.

A survey by Financial Times showed that about 41% of Mexicans regard insecurity as the “most urgent” challenge facing the next government.

In Tijuana, a crime-ridden city on the border with the United States, Cristian Castro, a 47-year-old teacher, believes locking up criminals “doesn’t solve the problem.”

Enedina Galvez, 34, a Mexican American, wants candidates to consider decriminalizing drugs, but the idea is absent from the campaign.

While Galvez raised the issue of insecurity more than Scheinbaum did, she trailed far behind Scheinbaum in the polls.

Sheinbaum has 59% of voters, while Galvez is in second place with 35%, according to an average of polls compiled by Oraculus.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)