Enrique Pena Nieto and Mexico’s weakened press

After the July 2012 national elections, Enrique Pena Nieto was declared president-elect of Mexico, set to ascend into power by December of the same year.

Enrique Peña Nieto Image Credit: opencanada.org

The new president promised to address the pervasive problem of illegal drug trade that has permeated into all aspects of the country’s socio-politics. Suspicion abound in certain localities that the local governments, police forces, and media are all controlled by drug cartels responsible for violent criminal activity.

Enrique Peña Nieto Image Credit: tesfanews.net

According to the worldwide alliance Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), women and men who work in media have been systematically silenced in a variety of ways for their roles in exposing the abuse of authority among law enforcers and government officials in favor of influential drug families. Some have been murdered, while others have been abducted or have disappeared.

Enrique Peña Nieto Image Credit: m5.paperblog.com

But President-elect Pena Nieto has more than just corruption to fight. Behind wayward politicians and their henchmen are drug cartels determined to suppress any news about the violence wreaked by these organizations. A local newspaper, El Norte, was attacked for the third time in one month, according to reports. These attacks have gone unsolved.

But crimes against media have a way of going unsolved in these territories. According to the CPJ, Durango-based crime reporter Bladimir Antuna García was murdered—but just like the reports of harassment that the journalist once lodged with the local police, his assassination remained ignored.

Clearly, the new president has his tasks cut out for him. The manner by which he plans to proceed is interesting in that it may be significantly different from the tactics employed by the political party, which held sway over Mexico’s political arena over the past decade.

Read more about President-elect Pena Nieto on www.enriquepenanieto.com.