“AMLO’s six-year term is emerging as the most violent”

Although the intentional homicides that have occurred so far during the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador have a “stable” trend, the records present high figures that even already exceed the cases recorded during the government of Felipe Calderón and are shaping up to exceed the historical data of Enrique Peña Nieto.

From 2019 to November 2022, the period of the López Obrador government, 137,603 murders have been recorded, this represents 13.14% more than the total number of homicides recorded in the entire government of Felipe Calderón, when 121,613 of these crimes occurred.

On the other hand, the current government remains 22% below the number of murders registered during the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto, when 157,158 homicide victims were recorded during that period.

However, there are still two years left in the current López Obrador administration, so, according to the experts, if the current trend is not reversed, the homicide figures could exceed the all-time highs registered under Enrique Peña Nieto.

And it is that according to official data, the trend of homicides per year during the period that López Obrador has been in power, exceeds 35,000 victims, compared to the more than 20,000 registered in the past six-year term.

Thus, on average, the current government registers more than 2,300 intentional homicides per month, while with Peña the figure was 1,779 and with Calderón 1,269.

Achilles heel

Eunice Rendón, a security expert, considered that homicide is one of the Achilles heels, since although they have stagnated in some months, in others the data is very high, which is why it is the greatest concern in terms of security. from the country.

The expert indicated that there is a lack of comprehensive strategies on the part of the government to be able to achieve reductions in this crime, while another cause of the prevalence of homicidal violence is attributed to the strengthening of organized crime in the territory.

Rendón said that the federal government has announced, on at least three occasions, strategies to reduce homicides, but it remains an announcement without real follow-up.

“This shows an inefficiency on the issue of the strategies that have been implemented, because they continue to be in the same places,” he said.

For Luis Carlos Sánchez, a researcher at Causa en Común, the homicide figures throughout this six-year term have stagnated in recent years, because although the federal government justifies that they reached the government with high figures, the reality is that the cases They have not had a substantial decrease.

Therefore, he warned that the prospects for homicides will probably exceed those of previous governments and this is due to a lack of strategy to combat crime.

Since 2019, we have had almost 30 months with increases in homicide numbers than reductions,” he said.

November data

Yesterday Ricardo Mejía, Undersecretary of Public Security of the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), pointed out that the country accumulates 28,449 intentional homicides so far in 2022, a year-on-year reduction of 7.3% compared to the same period of the year. former.

He highlighted that in November alone, 2,350 homicides were registered in Mexico, which represents “the month of November with the fewest intentional homicides in the last 6 years.”

The official explained that of the total homicides registered in the country, 48.9% were registered in Guanajuato, Baja California, Edomex, Michoacán, Jalisco and Chihuahua.

maritza.perez@eleconomista.mx