What is happening in Veracruz is important because it is the third most heavily populated state in the country, just ahead of Jalisco. If drug gangs intimidate voters, they could determine the result of next year’s general elections. In Veracruz’s 2010 gubernatorial election, 3.1m people voted, of a total electorate of 5.3m. In the 2006 presidential election, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa won the presidency by the narrowest margin ever: 243,934 votes. The federal government claims that those killed were members of the high profile drug gang, Los Zetas, and that they were massacred by the rival Golfo gang. The fact that the gangs are moving into new areas, such as Veracruz, before they have been pushed out of other areas is also a concern for the government. The death toll in Monterrey is still rising (1,326 people have been killed to date this year according to Reforma’s Ejecutómetro, up from 610 in all of 2010). Although the gang murder rate in Chihuahua (and especially in Ciudad Juárez) has fallen this year, (with 1,423 victims in the state to date, down from 3,185 in the whole of 2010), the death toll is still running at almost six people per day.
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