Mexico’s murders hit high in blow to president

Mexico has this year registered its highest murder total since modernrecords began, according to official data, dealing a fresh blow toPresident Enrique Pena Nieto’s pledge to get gang violence under controlwith presidential elections due in 2018.A total of 23,101 murder investigations were opened in the first 11months of this year, surpassing the 22,409 registered in the whole of2011, figures published on Friday night by the interior ministry showed.The figures go back to 1997.Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 pledging to tame the violence that escalated under his predecessor Felipe Calderon.He managed to reduce the murder tally during the first two years of his term, but since then it has risen steadily.At 18.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, the 2017 Mexican murder rate is stilllower than it was in 2011, when it reached almost 19.4 per 100,000, thedata showed.The rate has also held below levels reported in several other Latin American countries.According to UN figures used in the World Bank’s online database, Braziland Colombia both had a murder rate of 27 per 100,000, Venezuela 57,Honduras 64 and El Salvador 109 in 2015, the last year for which dataare available.The US rate was 5 per 100,000.Still, Pena Nieto’s failure to contain the killings has damaged hiscredibility and hurt his centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party(PRI), which faces an uphill struggle to hold onto power in the July2018 presidential election.The current front-runner in the race, leftist Andres Manuel LopezObrador, has floated exploring an amnesty with criminal gangs to reducethe violence, without fleshing out the idea.Mexican newspaper Reforma said yesterday that after a campaign stop inthe central state of Hidalgo on Friday, Lopez Obrador again addressedthe issue when asked whether talks aimed at stopping the violence couldinclude criminal gangs.“There can be dialogue with everyone. There needs to be dialogue andthere needs to be a push to end the war and guarantee peace. Thingscan’t go on as before,” Reforma quoted Lopez Obrador as saying.Such a strategy harbours risks for the former Mexico City mayor.A poll this month showed that two-thirds of Mexicans reject offering anamnesty to members of criminal gangs in a bid to curb violence, withless than a quarter in favour.The law bars Pena Nieto from seeking re-election.