By Laurence Iliff The Dallas Morning News August 4, 2007
Mexico City - It was an unusual campaign spot, even in narco-obsessed Mexico.
A battered police commander, captured by presumed drug traffickers, "confesses" to working for the Sinaloa cartel and implicates officials in the Baja California state government, run by President Felipe Calderón's National Action Party, or PAN.
The "narco-video" is proof, says Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon in the TV spot, that the current government is corrupt.
"They always blame others for their failures," says the horse track owner, who is running a law-and-order campaign for governor in Baja California - even as federal prosecutors accuse his police force of working for the Tijuana cartel. "I now show them as corrupt and liars, and here is more proof. The confession of this police chief links them to the narcos."
Sunday's gubernatorial faceoff in Baja California - between Mr. Hank Rhon of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and PAN rival José Osuna Millán - is one of the first in which allegations of narco ties have become the key issue, analysts say. Voters have seen an explosion in drug violence and the cartels' expansion into new areas like kidnapping and extortion. The state has the highest crime rate in Mexico.
And the election could mark a turning point in Mexico and especially in the north, where drug trafficking is so entrenched in everyday life that it hasn't traditionally been a political issue, analysts said.
"There is a ghost that has been haunting the election in Baja California, and that ghost is the narcos," said Jorge Chabat, a political analyst whose focus is the drug trade. "It has been a constant undercurrent. ... Now it is front and center."
Polls show that Mr. Hank Rhon and Mr. Osuna are essentially tied.
One of Mr. Osuna's key campaign phrases is: "I'm clean. ... I have no ties to criminals."
Mr. Hank Rhon says he has reduced crime in Tijuana and would do so in the state. "You already know me," he says in one ad. "I don't give up."
This week, the narco accusations reached critical mass.
Police face warrants
The federal attorney general's office leaked tape recordings to the Mexico City newspaper Reforma that appear to show Tijuana cartel operatives using police radio frequencies to order Tijuana police to transport drugs in patrol cars, look after kidnap victims and participate in killing federal anti-drug police.
On Thursday, Reforma also reported that two judges issued arrest warrants for two of Mr. Hank Rhon's top police commanders- one for protecting officers accused of homicide and another for killing a subordinate.
The warrants came near the midnight Wednesday deadline for all political campaigning to cease - a "cooling off" period in which candidates are limited in what they can say and campaign spots are prohibited.
Mr. Hank Rhon's campaign coordinator, Fernando Castro, said the timing of the warrants was clearly political.
"This is a programmed maneuver, and in addition, these police did not begin their careers in the Hank administration; they are not newcomers, they are from PAN schools," said Mr. Castro. The PAN ran Tijuana before Mr. Hank Rhon.
Rhon defiant
Mr. Hank Rhon is on a leave of absence, but he has regularly challenged federal authorities to prove their allegations of corruption in his police department and has said he'd be the first to demand that officers be punished if there is evidence of wrongdoing.
With this week's actions by the federal government, analysts said, the election is quickly becoming a referendum on Mr. Hank Rhon, a colorful multimillionaire who's had several wives and claims a total of 19 children.
"If Hank had an opportunity to win this election, I think that has been reduced," said Mr. Chabat, who added that corruption in Tijuana precedes Mr. Hank Rhon by decades.
Mr. Hank Rhon runs a gambling empire that began with the Agua Caliente horse track and sports book in Tijuana. He has dozens of sports books and mini-casinos across Mexico. Several were robbed this year by armed groups apparently linked to one or more drug cartels, authorities said.
Mr. Hank Rhon is a legendary figure, driving around gritty Tijuana in a Rolls-Royce and building a personal zoo of exotic animals. His late father, Carlos Hank González, was a key figure in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which controlled the presidency from 1929 to 2000, before losing to PAN.
Jesús Blancornelas, the late editor of the Tijuana weekly newspaper Zeta, accused Mr. Hank Rhon of involvement in the 1988 killing of the muckraking newspaper's co-founder, Héctor Félix, a charge Mr. Hank Rhon has vehemently denied. A Hank Rhon bodyguard was convicted of the killing.
Roy Campos, director of the Consulta Mitofsky polling firm, said he doesn't think the Baja California election will be decided on the narco allegations.
"I was born into a narco culture; I'm from Culiacán," Mr. Campos said.
Culiacán is the capital of Sinaloa state in northern Mexico, home of the nation's dominant drug cartel.
"We see it [drug trafficking] as something bad but also something beneficial," Mr. Campos said, referring to jobs and economic development.
Mr. Campos also pointed out that Mr. Hank Rhon has a valid U.S. visa - not something typically handed out to people with suspected ties to organized crime.
Indeed, Mr. Hank Rhon's larger-than-life image - a sharp contrast to Mr. Osuna, a low-key former mayor of Tijuana who said he has never gambled - may be an advantage in the north.
"In this northern culture, some aspire to have as much money and as many women with distinct children [as Mr. Hank]," the pollster said.
Carlos Ordóñez, head of polling for the Mexico City newspaper El Universal, said that culture may be changing.
"There is a part of the population that may idolize him [Mr. Hank Rhon]," the pollster said, "but there's an ample sector that perceives him as dishonest, and they don't want dishonesty."
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