As suggested by James Surowiecki in the Financial Page of the New Yorker (July 7, 2008): "When bad things happen, it's always nice to have a scapegoat". Since it is not possible to ask for the resignation of the economy or the media (at least not in democratic countries), Presidents and Prime Ministers have become quite good at the art of dismissing public officials when things do not go as planned. Mexican Presidents are no exception.
In the last few months, there have been important changes at the Attorney General's Office. Indeed, several high-ranking officials, including the Deputy Attorney General in charge of Special Investigations on Organized Crime (SIEDO), resigned to their positions due to cooperation problems at the hearth of the cabinet, or to poor results in the fight against crime. As the demands for security increase in number and intensity, it is possible that Mexico will observe more of these resignations/dismissals in the next few months. At the top of the list is Interior Minister Juan Camilo Murino, as well as some other cabinet members in charge of protecting Mexican citizens.
In the meantime, we can expect to see many more references to the implementation of the “National Security, Justice and Legality Agreement“, as well as to who is in charge of overseeing it and who is responsible for its success or failure. This might sound familiar to students of international organizations, as the latter usually spend more time discussing the existence of a problem than actually solving it. Unfortunately, people die while other people agree on what kind of help they need.
