Mexican Drug Cartels Threaten Elections

Not too surprising.

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 4 -- Drug cartels are trying to influence the outcomes of major elections in Mexico by kidnapping and threatening candidates, according to Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora.

The remarks by Medina Mora, released by his office Friday, underscored the Mexican government's growing willingness in recent months to acknowledge the threat drug cartels pose to the nation's fragile democracy. The problem is most severe, Medina Mora said, in the border states of Baja California and Tamaulipas, and in Michoacan, the home state of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

And Mora also added this, in case you haven't been paying attention:

"There are municipal police forces that have collapsed, that function more as an aid to organized crime than as protection for the public," Medina Mora said.

Mexican Drug Cartels Threaten Elections - washingtonpost.com