Out with Pena Nieto? For Mexicans, Missing Students Case Overshadows All Whitney Eulich - The Christian Science Monitor
go to original December 3, 2014

Mexico: "A country, not a morgue!" (RuptlyTV)

Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto kicked off his third year in office this week, expressing pride in the passage of landmark reforms like education, energy, and telecommunications. But during a speech in the southern state of Chiapas Monday, he noted that “we’re not satisfied.”

Neither is the public.

The grisly case of 43 students kidnapped and presumed massacred in Iguala this fall still hangs over President Peña Nieto, his government, and the entire nation. The brutal event became a national symbol of the depth of corruption, the power of criminal groups, the weakness of governance, and police impunity. With presidential approval ratings faltering and violence once again taking center stage, the government is under pressure to actively address the problems at the root of the Iguala case.

“The level of public indignation is so deep, and the credibility of the president – and really of all major political parties – is more at stake than any government before,” says Claudio Lomnitz, director of Columbia University’s Center for Mexican studies in New York. "It could impact his ability to get things done, and with four more years in office, that's a problem."

According to a November Buendía & Laredo poll, 50 percent of Mexicans don’t approve of Peña Nieto’s work, a 13-point drop in approval from last year. The majority of the population (52 percent) says the country is on a bad or very bad path, the most negative perception of the government in six years.

Read the rest at The Christian Science Monitor

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