DRUG TRAFFICKING WEIGHS ON MEXICANS

Exclusive: Poll Shows Outraged Voters Want Next Leader To Get Tough

MEXICO CITY - Almost all Mexican voters regard drug trafficking and
spreading narco-violence as serious problems going into the
presidential election this summer, and they say authorities are doing
little or nothing to combat them, according to a new poll.

Concerns about the drug war have jumped dramatically since a similar
survey of Mexicans in the last presidential race six years ago. Now,
as the fighting among rival drug dealers moves south from the
Mexico-U.S. border into the heartland, voters from Ciudad Juarez to
Cancun say they are becoming more worried.

Pollsters say outrage over the drug cartels - some believed to have
operatives in North Texas - offers a potential political opening for
Mexican presidential candidates to reach voters who want a strong
response to the violence that has shaken their confidence in the
government's ability to protect them.

"The number of people saying this is a serious or very serious
problem really jumps out," said Carlos Ordonez, coordinator of the
poll for The Dallas Morning News, Al Dia and the Mexican newspaper El
Universal. "The candidates have talked about insecurity, but they
have failed to offer concrete proposals, and that's what the voters want."

The nationwide survey - the most extensive look at Mexicans' views
about the drug war since the presidential race began in earnest about
two months ago - was conducted amid heavy media attention on recent
violence, including a shootout between police and alleged cartel
enforcers in Acapulco, a commando-style attack on the Nuevo Laredo
newspaper El Manana, and the assassination of two city police chiefs
in the northern state of Nuevo Leon.

More than 90 percent of registered voters surveyed say drug
trafficking is a major problem and is moving into other parts of the
country from border cities such as Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, both
across from Texas.

Faith in authorities lost

Javier Ibarrola, a columnist on security issues for the news magazine
Milenio, said the drug-related battles, along with increasing drug
use in Mexico and greater media focus on the issue, have Mexicans
more fearful of organized crime.

"This wave of violence is very new," he said. "Before, there was a
killing here, a killing there, but it didn't really get the media's
attention. I think now it's an issue that generates a lot of tension."

In a sign of frustration, voters told pollsters they have little
faith in government to respond effectively.

Two-thirds of those questioned said neither the federal government
nor the state government - or their respective police forces - is
doing much to confront the drug dealers. And 72 percent said Mexican
judges are doing little or nothing to resolve the problems.

In an interview Friday in Dallas, Geronimo Gutierrez, undersecretary
for North America in Mexico's Foreign Ministry, said local and
federal authorities on the border are underpaid and underequipped in
dealing with the cartels. But, he said, the Mexican government is
taking steps to eliminate the temptation of corruption and to improve
intelligence gathering and the judicial system.

"The worst thing that can happen is that there is a sense of
impunity," he said.

The polling unit for El Universal conducted 1,000 in-person
interviews with registered voters Feb. 10-13. The margin of error is
plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

Affecting the vote

Although still not as crucial to voters as the economy, the drug war
could become a more important issue in July's presidential election,
said Daniel Lund, head of MUND Americas, which conducted a similar
survey in 2000 for The News.

In that survey, just 4 percent cited "controlling the power of drug
traffickers" as the principal issue that would affect their vote. The
presidential winner, Vicente Fox, campaigned on jobs and the economy,
democracy, freedom of speech and cutting an immigration deal with the U.S.

"All the candidates are going to seize on" narco-trafficking, Mr.
Lund said. But, he predicted, they all will propose the same
solution: "an expanded role for the military" because, he said, it is
the one government institution that is not considered deeply corrupt.

The poll appears to reflect that: Voters credit the military for
doing a better job in the fight against drug dealers than police and
state and federal governments.

The leading presidential candidates have tiptoed around the issue,
but that may change quickly, analysts said.

Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, has
incorporated the phrase "a firm hand" into his campaign slogan.

The front-runner, former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, has
focused on social issues, such as pensions for the elderly,
scholarships for poor children and the fight against poverty.

The other major contender, Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is battling allegations of corruption
and influence peddling by top party politicians.

Pollster Francisco Abundis Luna said the narco-violence tends to come
and go in voters' minds. "It's a tricky issue; it depends on the
moment," said Mr. Abundis, associate director of the Mexico City
polling firm Parametria.

Manuel Barberena C., president of the Pearson opinion research
company, said he expects that Mexican politicians soon will propose
more specific actions to curb the violence. It hasn't happened yet,
he said, but "there will be a point where the narco-trafficking will
be so out of control that it becomes a big issue."