Patrick Corcoran

Mexico's next major political milestone, the 2012 presidential election, is still off on the horizon, but for the impatient, Sunday's gubernatorial contest in Mexico state offers a sneak preview of what to expect a year from now. The closely watched race's biggest winner will likely be a man who is not even running: Enrique Peña Nieto, the presumptive favorite to succeed Felipe Calderón as president next year. more

Mexico is not known for its start-up ventures, whether in legitimate business or in organized crime. What Telmex and Televisa are to legal commerce -- unrepentant monopolists, ruthlessly opposed to new players in their respective industries -- the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas are to the nation's underworld. Yet that appears to be changing, at least in the criminal realm. more

TORREÓN, Mexico -- On Dec. 9, Mexican President Felipe Calderón tabbed Finance Minister Agustín Carstens to head the nation's central bank. Despite a political climate increasingly hostile toward Calderón, the move brought waves of approval. But it also illustrates Calderón's alarming habit of handing all of the most important jobs that open up under his watch to stalwart loyalists. more

TORREÓN, Mexico -- Mexican President Felipe Calderón has been irrevocably identified with one issue more than any other: security. But despite some improvements in Mexico's institutional capacity to fight crime, Calderón's security gamble has largely backfired politically. As a result, security is now yesterday's buzzword. Calderón, it seems, is intent on remaking himself as a development president. more

TORREÓN, Mexico -- In addition to completely reordering Mexico's political landscape, the legislative elections on July 5 marked a step forward for gender equality in the country. Both the opposition PRI, which scored a huge victory, and the ruling PAN are expected to tab women as the leaders of their respective caucuses in the Chamber of Deputies. Nonetheless, gender-based discrepancies remain. more

TORREÓN, Mexico -- Just as love persisted in García Márquez's masterpiece set during the 19th century cholera outbreaks, politics has not gone on hiatus during the swine flu epidemic that continues to threaten Mexico. While the political consequences of the outbreak have yet to fully crystallize, it's clear that the episode has the potential to scramble the electoral calculus ahead of this summer's elections. more

President Barack Obama's visit to Mexico today marks the culmination of a month-long binge of attention from the U.S. government. But while the shift in tone from Washington is laudable, the impact of rhetoric alone will be limited in both duration and depth. more

Long before President Barack Obama's election, Latin America experts began debating the list of priorities that should guide the next administration's regional policy. But the region is far too diverse with far too wide a range of needs to narrow down to a short list of goals. It must be treated as a collection of countries, more than a collection of issues. more

TORREÓN, Mexico -- Felipe Calderón arrived to the Mexican presidency two years ago with a weak mandate and amid wild controversy. The presidential election's runner-up, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, alleged electoral fraud; his supporters took over the streets of Mexico City for weeks. The inauspicious opening belied what would become a bold if uneven first two years in office. But with Mexico's political parties shifting their focus toward next summer's congressional elections, the Calderón presidency faces more obstacles ahead.
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TORRÉON, Mexico -- Fernando Martí, the 14-year-old son of a Mexican sporting goods magnate, was kidnapped in June and found dead in the trunk of a car in the nation's capital in August. His ordeal, along with stratospheric levels of drug violence, has provoked a groundswell of outrage across Mexican society. Virtually everyone drawing breath from Tijuana to Cancun agrees that Mexico's rampant criminality must be addressed. However, agreement on exactly how to address this insecurity is conspicuously absent. more

TORREÓN, Mexico -- The Mexican political class doesn't agree on much, but no one denies that the country's political left today is a hopeless mess. Every day brings a fresh embarrassment, a new descent into the bizarre. The present state of affairs is all the more conspicuous given the heights to which the left rose less than two short years ago. Ironically, the decline can be traced to the very man who almost lifted the left into the presidency. more

TORRÉON, Mexico -- The Merida Initiative is a billion-dollar anti-drug aid package that only a kindergarten teacher could love: The results are not important, just the mere idea that the United States and Mexico are cooperating makes it worthwhile. The focus on the countries overcoming their prickly past and learning to play nice ignores the fact that their interests in the war on drugs are not the same. What solves Mexican problems won't necessarily work on American ones, and vice versa.
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