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With Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s term coming to an end next year, our neighbor to the South is also gearing up for 2012 elections. In preparation, Calderon reshuffled his cabinet this week to allow two members to run for office: Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero, and Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova. Calderon himself came into office in a controversial election in 2006, barely beating his main rival Andres Manual Lopez Obrador. Many Mexicans believe Obrador was the rightful winner of that election. Calderon’s tenure has borne out most of what Mexican progressives and the labor movement feared: a full frontal assault on unions that have left hundreds of thousands reeling without jobs in a global recession. Mexico’s unemployed population as a whole numbers at many millions. The official unemployment rate is 5.4%, but 25% of the employable population is “under-employed.” In 2009, more than 40,000 electrical workers were summarily fired when President Calderon illegally dissolved their union in a bid to privatize the company that provides electricity to most of central Mexico. Organized miners and airline workers have also had their unions decimated by Calderon. Added to the labor crisis is Mexico’s deadly drug war, which has claimed upwards of 50,000 lives. The bodies of two bloggers who dared to criticize the drug cartels on social networking sites were found dead and mutilated in Nuevo Laredo this week. Links between Calderon’s government, Mexico’s business elite, and the drug cartels have further enraged the population. Tens of thousands of Mexicans protested a week ago to express their wrath at Calderon as he delivered his annual state-of-the-nation speech. Workers gathered in the main square or Zocalo in Mexico City, calling themselves the “indignados,” or indignants.

GUEST: David Bacon, labor reporter and photo-journalist, recently returned from Mexico

Read David Bacon’s article and view his photos on the Mexican Indignados movement here: http://www.truth-out.org/mexicos-indignados-have-had-it-here/1315597112

Visit David Bacon’s website at dbacon.igc.org.