MEXICO PRESIDENT HOPEFULS CONFRONT BORDER BLOODSHED

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- Mexico's top three candidates for president
agree on several things, but their biggest rhetorical overlap could be
on the need to combat the drug traffickers who in recent years have
turned this city into a battleground.

Similar ideas for restoring order are in the platforms of candidates
Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party, or PAN, and Roberto
Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Both call
for the creation of a unified federal police force and a central
intelligence-sharing clearinghouse.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the candidate for the Democratic
Revolution Party, or PRD, wants to completely re-evaluate every
element of the federal attorney general's office and shake up state
and local police forces.

The current epicenter of a drug cartel turf war that has claimed more
than 300 lives in the past 21/2 years, Nuevo Laredo is listening. The
city has put drug trafficking -- or more generally, public safety --
on par with immigration and the economy as a campaign issue.

Whether that translates to votes nationally is anyone's guess. Some
compare drug cartels to corporations, with big fish overtaking the
smaller fry, forming and breaking alliances, engineering mergers and
acquisitions. But their currency is bullets, and a large swath of
northern Mexico is at risk of getting caught in the crossfire.

Lopez Obrador visited Nuevo Laredo twice during the campaign season;
Madrazo stumped here once. Calderon, citing potential risk, did not
campaign in this border city until last Saturday.

The election is Sunday.

Nuevo Laredo-based leaders of all three parties agree President
Vicente Fox's administration has not addressed one key problem: a
severe lack of communication between police departments at the
federal, state and local levels.

The race for mayor in neighboring Laredo this spring showcased how
important the security issue is locally. Raul Salinas, a former FBI
agent and political newcomer who campaigned hard on his law
enforcement background to identify with voters' fears of spillover
violence from Nuevo Laredo, upset an experienced councilman.

"Of course it is an important issue, as well as one of the most
sensitive," said Manuel Canales Escamilla, the president of the PRI in
Nuevo Laredo. "But it's not necessarily a political issue, it's a
government issue at all three levels."

Madrazo supports the creation of a unified national police force to
better coordinate the disparate federal police agencies that exist in
Mexico, Canales said.

"His hands will not tremble when it's time to take actions to correct
problems," Canales said, adding that Madrazo made a public vow to
restore public safety in Nuevo Laredo.

Details of Madrazo's plans were hazy. Mexico's federal law enforcement
apparatus has been dissolved and reconstituted several times in an
effort to shake out corruption.

Madrazo has not specified whether a new national police would replace
the current Federal Preventative Police, Canales said.

Calderon shares Madrazo's vision of a new federal police force, but
his campaign offered more details.

"What he is proposing is to make a singular intelligence unit that can
centralize all of the information from all of those police
departments," said Dr. Jorge Ramirez Rubio, the PAN leader in Nuevo
Laredo.

Calderon also has outlined a plan to create a separate police force
that is solely dedicated to apprehending drug traffickers, to relieve
the overextended force attached to the attorney general's office.

The PAN's conservatism becomes more apparent when it points blame for
the narco wars.

"Felipe Calderon is aware that more weapons is not the answer,"
Ramirez said. "The problem is at the root -- the lack of values, the
disintegration of families and the lack of economic
opportunity."

The PAN candidate also has said he would push to allow drug
traffickers to be tried by hooded judges, to protect the justices and
reduce corruption, Ramirez said.

Lopez Obrador, in a statistical dead heat with Calderon for the
presidency, has been the toughest-talking candidate on the stump when
it comes to curbing the narcos, but like Madrazo's proposals, details
have been few.

"The most important is to ensure that authorities don't collude with
organized crime and that they don't side with one group to eradicate
another," said the PRD president here, Jorge Valdez Vargas. "We are
here, hard fisted and strong-willed, as it should be."

Lopez Obrador would shake up the attorney general's office -- which
oversees drug cartel investigations -- from top to bottom, Valdez said.

"You're not going to stop drug trafficking, but at least you can
combat it," he said.