As we wrote earlier we do not support legalizing drugs. It just doesn’t seem to be the solution. If you can’t control it, just legalize it? Wouldn’t want to be living in Mexico when they decide to legalize killing people, because they can´t stop it… However, I do support discussing the problem. It has been brought up numerous times. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox did it, after retiring. Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos said he would consider supporting it, if everyone else would. And now there is Otto Perez Molina, Guatemala’s recently installed president.

With six months to go to the elections, political parties in Mexico are ready to start their campaign. The PRI is still on the forefront, but is their victory inevitable? In the next few days Voic of Mexico will look into the chances of the three main contenders. We start of with the PRD and their candidate Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador.

As I write this article Rick Santorum has just beaten Mitt Romney (we wrote about his family a while back) in both Missouri as well as Minnesota. Although no delegates were at stake there, it does make the race for GOP nomination more interesting. It would have been rather boring to see Mitt Romney trample his fellow GOP contenders just like that anyway. For now, Santorum gets to wear the momentum hat for a while and who knows what the next primary will bring us (Maine, with 24 delegates).

Early last year I had a long interview with Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, the outgoing governmental leader of the Federal District, more colloquially known as the mayor of Mexico City (though technically there is no such position anymore). Inevitably we landed on the political future of the nation’s capital. When asked if he has any fears of the PRD losing its long time bastion of power to the PRI or PAN, mr. Ebrard answered decisively: “No. The Federal District is perredista and will remain so.”

One thing that always occurs to me when I’m watching the news in Mexico, is the way Israel is being treated. Not that Mexican media are overly biased in favor of or against Israel, but the terminology used in their reports strikes me as odd.

As Otto Pérez Molina enters office as Guatemala’s first president with a military background since the end of the civil war in 1986, his administration faces a great many challenges. The biggest challenge, as will any Guatemalan tell you, is security. Even though Guatemala’s murder rate has been going down recently, violence is still prevalent. Many of the current security problems are attributed to drug trafficking groups, most notoriously the Mexican-based Los Zetas group, who reportedly control large swaths of land in the northern part of Guatemala.

I’ve lived in Mexico for five years, despite the fact that there’s no reason on Earth that I have to. I present this fact somewhat defensively because, as readers of my blog and this column may discern, I spend a great portion of my waking hours complaining about Mexico and Mexicans. This is often taking as hostility or disdain, but nothing could be farther from the truth. “Why don’t you go back to America?” is a frequent comment I get, usually offered as a suggestion rather than a question. Because I choose not to, dear commenter. I could move to the US with considerably greater ease than you could, but I don’t, because I love your country. If our situations were reversed, could you say the same? Really? You’re so sure?

Everybody loves a conspiracy, and Mexicans are no exception. So when José Francisco Blake Mora died in a helicopter crash last week, the rumor circus was in full swing minutes after the news broke. Not surprising, of course, as very few presidents have been as unlucky as Felipe Calderón, with no less than two of his Interior Secretaries dying in plane crashes in three years.

The facts simply don't matter. The drug war in Mexico has either failed or is being won, depending on what your gut tells you.

There are plenty of drug war analysts to go around, and they all publish their respectable pieces of analysis, commentary and suggestive reading for policy makers in ever larger volumes. The more money is being poured into combating the drug trade, the more money is available to pay analysts. That's not surprising.

Jorge Castañeda’s recent book Mañana Forever? devotes the bulk of a chapter to the issue of trust – specifically, to Mexicans’ lack of said virtue, usually when Americans are involved, but more broadly towards each other. They are simply (if I can generalize wildly and irresponsibly here) not a trusting people – with the possible exception of Moctezuma, and look where that got him.

... Okay, as pickup lines go, that’s unimpressive, but if you’re a clerk at the Instituto Nacional de Migration, that should be good enough to let me have my way with you – and by “have my way,” I mean, “renew my FM3 visa.” Instead, the INM throws up as many obstacles as they can think of, despite there being not the slightest chance that they will, in the end, actually deny me one.

Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the United States, reacted this week to Texas governor Rick Perry's suggestion about deploying US soldiers to combat organized crime in Mexico. Sarukhan's reaction (and thereby the Mexican government's) was predictable: out of the question, as much as Perry made explicit that such a cooperation would be in full concert with the Mexican government.

Imagine not being able to get gas for over 10 days. It would be hard to get to work or bring the kids to school, not to mention the supermarket not getting any fresh food, nor your favorite restaurant. Annoying, right? Back in 1938 not a lot of Mexicans had cars, nor did they have supermarkets, but president Lázaro Cárdenas was annoyed enough over the fact that trains couldn´t run normally, disrupting public life completely. Unlike us, however, he did have the power to do something about it.

As the level of violence in Mexico has surged in recent years, so have has the number of extremely graphic pictures and videos showing violence too. Prominent blogs are increasingly showering the public with what is basically snuff become reality. The question now is: what is the added value of these images? Should the Internet community refrain from publishing them?

The Mexican army has been both welcome and unwelcome in the fight against organized crime. However, despite principal objections against soldiers entering the civil domain of law enforcement and thousands of accusations of human rights violations, Mexico's creeping militarization is as unavoidable as it is unwelcome.

In his fifth ‘Informe’, Mexico’s equivalent of the State of the Union, President Calderón announced the creation of a new Social Attorney’s Office for Attention to Victims of Violence (Procuraduría Social de Atención a Víctimas de la Violencia). Amongst its tasks will be finding disappeared people and assisting the victim’s families.

In the wake of the horrendous attacks on the Casino Royale in Monterrey, last Thursday, Mexico is trying to cope with the scale of the violence and looking for answers to many questions. The most important of all: how do we end this? What do we need to do to stop the violence?

Cherán, a small town in Mexico's rural Michoacán, has taken up arms against organized crime and illegal logging. Police and government officials have been sacked and a citizen's committee has taken over administration of the municipality. The local population is waiting for help from the federal government, so far in vain.

Welcome, and thank you for visiting our brand new website! The Voice of Mexico is a new journalistic project, with the intention of informing you of the goings-on in Mexico and beyond. We are a website committed to informing our readers, both foreign and domestic, of what is happening in the country and why.

Luisa Maria Calderón, sister of president Felipe Calderón, will be candidate for the National Action Party (PAN) in the upcoming elections for governor in Michoacán state, this November. PAN-president Gustavo Madero confirmed Calderón’s candidacy earlier today in a press conference in the state’s capital of Morelia.