Election Time in Jalisco, from the criminal perspective

At the intersection of Democratic Socialism, COVID, Drug Wars, and electoral politics; you’ll find Jalisco.

The team running the show for Luis Munguia beat everybody else to the punch. His campaign posters were up when Shaina and I first arrived in Jalisco eight months ago, a handsome young candidate in the vein of Justin Trudeau, wearing a guayabera with the top two buttons undone in his dashing campaign poster. Munguia represents the Partido Verde, which I take to be much like the Green Parties of other countries in its Left of Center stance and environmental focus, but appears unlike those parties in its abundance of advertising dollars. The next wave came from Movimiento Ciudadano, described by a friend as a formerly-revolutionary party who have since been absorbed into the formerly-monolithic PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, which hilariously translates as Institutional Revolutionary Party.) In fact, according to my friend Osvaldo, every political party in the country is in essence a part of the PRI. Though they feign competition and have different brands, this multitude of small parties are faces of the same political macro-structure that’s been running Mexico forever. Every party, that is, save the MORENA Party who came into power in 2000 in the form of President…