Mexico & Nafta - 14 September 2004
Gertz goes
The public security minister, Alejando Gertz, resigned on 13 August. Gertz, who made his name as the law and order chief in Mexico City, under leftwing Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) administrations, had been in Fox's government since it took office on 1 December 2000. Gertz went only days before the expiration of a deadline, imposed by President Fox. Fox appeased the organisers of a major demonstration of law and order in June by promising to have taken steps to improve the law and order situation within 60 days.
Fox appointed Ramón Martín Huerta, who had worked with Fox when he was governor of Guanajuato, to take over from Gertz. Huerta had previously been a deputy minister at the interior ministry. Gertz seems to have paid for the price for growing public perceptions that the law and order situation was deteriorating. The big political parties used Gertz's departure to score political points. The main opposition party, the Partido Revolucionbario Institucional (PRI), said that his departure was needed because the government had failed to do anything to improve law and order.
Fox's Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) was delighted that Fox had replaced a Perredista with a Panista. Surprisingly, Diego Fernández de Cevallos, a maverick senator who is now chairing the senate, refused to criticise Gertz directly. He said that he wished Gertz every success in his future career.
The PRD put the boot into Gertz: a Perredista deputy and member of the national security committee of congress, Eliana García, said that Gertz had shown that he was incapable of doing anything to combat crime. She said that for this reason alone the PRD was happy that he had gone.
A PRD senator, Pablo Gómez argued that Fox had made a mistake in setting up a special public security ministry. He said that it would be better if the Policia Federal Preventativa (PFP) were answerable directly to the interior ministry. The PFP is the police force that deals with serious and organised crime.
President Fox said that Gertz was taking early retirement, adding that Gertz had asked to go so that he could pick up his academic career. Gertz said that he had always wanted to end his public service career after six years: he had now fulfilled those terms. Gertz said that he had achieved various things and met various targets that had been set. He said that his big achievement was to have overhauled the national police system.
- The Roman Catholic church is annoyed with the government for having recognised the cult of Santa Muerte as a religious group. The image of Santa Muerte, which is venerated by its adherents, who are mostly on the margins of society, is of the Grim Reaper: a skeleton with a scythe. The president of the bishops' conference, José Guadalupe Martín Rábago, said that nothing good would come of the registration. The cult is believed to have connections to the drug trade: it has spread from the north and is now big in Mexico City. Cultural commentators claim that the cult is a throwback to the syncretism which evangelists used to graft Christianity on to traditional religions. Unlike most conventional Catholicism, Santa Muerte glorifies violent death. A newspaper, Reforma, reckons that Santa Muerte has about 1m adherents across Mexico.
- President Vicente Fox earns less than most diplomats, the press reported on 22 August. He gets M$158,000 (US$13,862) a month, Mexico's ambassador to Japan gets US$2,000 a month more and even the consul in Hong Kong is better paid.