Photo by: World Economic Forum via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.

News media are generally predicting a relatively comfortable margin of victory for PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto over PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the ruling party PAN’s candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota in Presidential elections next Sunday.  Polls give the PRI candidate (44 percent) a big lead over the PRD (28 percent) and the PAN (25 percent.)

Compared to the weight of Mexico’s problems, the campaign has been light on issues.  Both the PAN and PRI have made vague pledges of continued cooperation with the United States in efforts against the drug cartels.  While current President Calderón’s approach to drug-related violence has resulted in no discernible improvement in security – indeed, some 60,000 people have died since he launched his military-intensive strategy – both Peña Nieto and Vázquez Mota have pledged to triple the Federal police (Vázquez) and create a paramilitary gendarmerie of 40,000 (Peña).  López Obrador has focused on jobs, services, and social issues.

Whoever wins the election, Mexico-U.S. relations do not appear likely to return to the mutual suspicion and tension of years past.  Neither of the three main parties seems overly dependent on nationalism – and anti-gringoism – for political support.  But the bloom is certainly off the much-vaunted U.S.-Mexico “co-responsibility” in the struggle against the cartels, and the next Mexican president almost surely is going to press for an end to the bad deal Mexico gets in the relationship  – the U.S. provides guns and intelligence, and tens of thousands of Mexicans die as drugs flow to eager American consumers.  Calderón’s successor probably will press Washington to prosecute the “war on drugs” in the United States, where the cartels’ footprint is huge, their operations are audacious, and they freely buy thousands of weapons smuggled southbound to kill Mexicans.  Whichever candidate is elected to the U.S. Presidency in November, next year will be a watershed during which the U.S. can either demonstrate a consequential commitment to co-responsibility – by pursuing the cartels in the United States and stanching the flow of guns and bulk cash into Mexico – or Calderon’s successor will unilaterally curtail cooperation.