DRUG PROBE OF GOVERNOR CASTS FOCUS ON MEXICO'S POLITICAL EVOLUTION

CANCUN, Mexico -- When federal drug agents swept past puzzled tourists this
month to seize three luxury hotels that line the powdery beaches of this
Caribbean resort, it came as little surprise that the police had found
evidence linking the properties to the biggest drug mafia in Mexico.

More startling were the questions that agents kept posing about the man they
suspected of being the Mafia's silent partner in the hotels. Over and over,
they asked employees about Mario Villanueva Madrid, the state governor and a
member of President Ernesto Zedillo's governing party.

"They're practically accusing me of being a trafficker!" Villanueva
protested, recounting how he immediately boarded a private jet and flew to
Mexico City to deny any financial ties to the hotels and complain to some of
Zedillo's senior aides.

Mexican officials say Villanueva continues to figure in a sweeping
investigation of drug operations in his state of Quintana Roo. But while one
Mexican intelligence report describes Villanueva as being "implicated in the
criminal organization" that has turned the state into one of the most
important conduits for cocaine being shipped to the United States, the
federal government has neither filed criminal charges against him nor been
able to contain his political counterattack.

In a blunt challenge to federal officials, Villanueva has demanded that they
show what evidence they have against him. He has even fought publicly with
leaders of Mexico's governing party, presidential loyalists whom he and
other hard-line governors are challenging for control.

Indeed, because of Villanueva's allegiance to the old guard, the police
investigation is now much more than that: It has become an electrifying test
of Zedillo's ability to deal with challenges of crime and politics that are
multiplying in the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party as the
once-absolute authority of the president erodes.

The confrontation underscores both the rapid pace and contradictory nature
of Mexico's political evolution.

Until recently, most Mexican governors served at the president's will. Messy
problems in the provinces were often solved by their dismissals, and
Zedillo's predecessor, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, forced the resignations of
almost a dozen governors and governors-elect after they ran into accusations
ranging from embezzlement to ballot theft.

Zedillo has slowly committed himself to more modern rules of greater
autonomy for the elected leaders of the 31 states. But good government has
not necessarily followed from greater democracy. As in Quintana Roo, the
president's powers often still rest on a criminal justice system that is
deeply in crisis, and on a political system that is still being born.

For the time being, the federal authorities seem to be pursuing their
investigations in Quintana Roo with unusual vigor.

They have seized several hotels worth $200 million that they traced to the
traffickers. They also shut down a private security company at the Cancun
airport that officials say the traffickers used to safeguard drugs and even
film the movements of visiting federal agents.

A senior Mexican official said the odds were better than even that
Villanueva would be indicted on conspiracy or other charges after his term
concludes in April. Under Mexico's constitution, a governor cannot be
prosecuted unless he is first impeached by the federal Congress.

"Just because he comes and says, `Look, I'm not guilty,' does not mean that
the thing ends there," the Mexican attorney general, Jorge Madrazo, said.
"What I can't tell you is whether I am going to indict Mario Villanueva."

Meanwhile, police in the border state of Sonora arrested a relative of
imprisoned drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero.

Jose Ramon Caro Quintero was arrested Monday in the city of Caborca, when
police found one-quarter of an ounce of cocaine in his possession, the
government news agency Notimex reported.

Checked-by: Don Beck