RACE TO BE JUAREZ MAYOR: CESAR JAUREGUI WILL DIVIDE JUAREZ INTO SECTIONS TO
FIGHT DRUGS

EL PASO -- Cesar Jauregui wants the people of Juarez to elect him mayor for
a year.

If he does not change things around, he will step down.

Jauregui, a lawyer who has been a state representative and held other minor
offices, said he wants to bring sweeping changes to the city, fast and
furiously.

"The situation we live in Juarez demands somebody to hold office who can
show results," said Jauregui, who is running against former mayor Hector
Murguia of the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI, in the July 4
election.

"Sometimes there are crazies who want to change things around," he said. "I
am one of them."

Jauregui, 43, is the candidate for the National Action Party or PAN. The
winner will take office in October.

Jauregui said he is not running to be mayor because of the annual salary of
840,000 Mexican pesos, which equals $65,850.

Jauregui said even as mayor of a city beset by violence, there are
limitations. Since 2008, more than 5,300 people have been killed in a drug
war that was prompted in 2006 when President Felipe Calderon took office
and went after the powerful drug cartels.

Even though Jauregui belongs to the same political party as Calderon, he
disagrees with Calderon's strategy of fighting the cartels with power and
force by using the military and federal police.

"Calderon has failed when it comes to drug trafficking," he said.

He said if elected mayor he would not allow continued intervention by the
federal government, which sent up to 8,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal
agents to Juarez in the last two years.

"I am not going to accept the federal force, I am the one who will be in
charge," Jauregui said.

He said the federal government has militarized and turned Juarez into a
police state in a matter of two years, even though the intentions were to
restore social order and fight extortions, kidnappings and murders.

But the violence continues and he predicted that the number of slayings
would increase this year.

Part of his solution is to divide the city into small sections and assign
police chiefs to monitor the crime rate at a micro level. If police
officers do not improve public safety in their areas, Jauregui said he will
fire them.

Fighting drug cartels and changing police methods are not the only measures
needed to rescue Juarez, Jauregui said.

Jauregui wants to pass an ordinance that will make contract-bidding open to
the public.

He said he knows first-hand as city clerk and councilman that the process
is corrupt with some businessmen bribing city council to win projects.

If he is elected, Jauregui said people will know who owns the companies the
government is hiring to pave streets and build bridges in the city and how
much money they will receive.

"We are going to make everything public," he said. "The citizens are sick
of the impunity."

Also, Jauregui wants a fiscal reform at the state level so Juarez gets more
money from the state.

He said Juarez did not get enough money from the state when its population
grew from 550,000 people in 1980 to 1.3 million in the latest census count
of 2005.

All the growth, he said, came from maquiladoras, twin plant factories,
which attracted thousands of workers from central and southern Mexico.

Jauregui said government investment in infrastructure did not mirror the
growth.

A generation of children whose parents worked long days in the maquilas did
not receive the attention and education needed, he said. Many of the
children joined gangs.

"We were covering our eyes. We did not see what we needed to have built to
soften the consequences growth brings," he said.

Jauregui graduated from the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez in 1990.

He is married and has one child.

His most recent public post, before he announced his candidacy, was in the
PAN party state committee supervising electoral matters.