DURING two years in office Mexico’s president, Enrique Peaa Nieto, has received sharply contrasting reviews at home and abroad. Foreigners, including The Economist, have praised his structural reforms of the economy, which include an historic measure to open up energy to private investment. Yet polls show that most Mexicans dislike Mr Peaa. Among other things, they blame his government for a squeeze on living standards and the interlinked problems of violent crime and corruption. Sadly, recent events have lent support to Mr Peaa’s domestic critics.

On November 8th Mexico’s attorney-general announced what almost everyone had already concluded: that 43 students from a teacher-training college in the southern state of Guerrero, who disappeared in the town of Iguala in late September, had been murdered by drug-traffickers after being kidnapped by the local police on the orders of the town’s mayor. Guerrero has been Mexico’s most violent state for centuries. The federal government bears no direct responsibility for these events. But Mexicans see in them a symbol of the failure of Mr Peaa’s administration to make security a priority.

Now comes a problem that is uncomfortably close to home. The government had already opted to cancel a contract for a high-speed train that it had hastily awarded to the sole bidder, a consortium of Chinese and Mexican companies including a construction firm from the president’s home state. A local journalist has revealed that the boss of the same firm owns a mansion that is the Peaa family’s private residence. The president denies any wrongdoing, but a common thread runs through these events.

Mexico only became a democracy in 2000, when seven decades of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the political machine that raised Mr Peaa, were ended by electoral defeat. Unfortunately, democracy did not bring the rule of law to Mexico. Too many in the PRI still see the job of the police and the courts as enforcing political control, rather than investigating mobsters. Corrupt politicians are protected rather than punished. Organised crime and graft both remain a part of everyday life, and neither has been helped by the drugs flowing north to the United States.

Some things have changed. The Supreme Court now operates professionally. A 41,000-strong federal police force is more capable than most of its local counterparts. Felipe Calderón, Mr Peaa’s predecessor, weakened the drugs gangs, but at the price of a surging murder rate and unchecked abuses by the security forces. On paper, Mr Peaa has a grand crime-prevention strategy. However his real efforts have been focused on the economy. The murder rate may have fallen back slightly, but extortion and kidnappings have not. Tycoons practise espionage and bribe judges. For many Mexicans, Iguala was a reminder of the gap between justice for the poor and for the rich.(Economist)

翻译：

在墨西哥总统恩里克·培尼亚·涅托执政的两年间，国内外评论出现收到了大幅度的对比。国外评论，包括经济学人在内，赞扬他的经济结构改革,其中便包括一个历史性措施—开放私人投资能源。然而，民意调查显示,大多数墨西哥人不喜欢佩尼亚。除了其他事情之外,他们指责政府压榨其生活水平并且与暴力犯罪和腐败问题联系在一起。可悲的是，最近发生的事件无疑不是赞同其国内对于佩尼亚的指责。

11月8日，墨西哥总检察长宣布了一个早已被众人所知的结论：43个来自南部的格雷罗州的师范学院学生，在9月下旬消失在伊瓜拉市(Iguala)，已经确定是在当地市长的指令下被当地警察绑架后被交给毒贩，并已遭到谋杀。几个世纪以来，格雷罗州一直是墨西哥最暴力的地区。联邦政府对这些事件并没有直接责任。但墨西哥人把这件事视为培尼亚执政中“优先考虑安全”的失败的象征。

现在最大的问题是人们在家附近也不能有安全感。政府已经决定取消与匆忙中决定的唯一投标人的高速列车合同，,中国和墨西哥公司组成的一个联合财团，包括一家来自总统的家乡的建筑公司。当地记者透露，该公司的老板拥有价值$7m的属于佩纳家族的私人住宅的豪宅。总统否认有任何不当行为,但这些事件贯穿了一条共同的主线。

墨西哥仅在2000年实行过民主政策，七年的统治的革命制度党(PRI)，提高了亨利的政治机构，减少了其选举失败的可能性。不幸的是，民主不会给墨西哥带来法治。大部分的革命制度党人仍然看到警察和法院在执行工作以便达到政治控制的效果，而不是在调查暴徒。腐败的政客们受到的是保护,而不是惩罚。有组织犯罪和腐败都仍然是日常生活的一部分，同时也促使了药物从北流向美国。

有些事改变了。最高法院现在开始进行专业的操作。而41000个强壮的联邦警察部队比大多数当地同行更有能力。前任总统卡尔﹒德龙削弱了毒品团伙，但不断飙升的谋杀率和无节制的滥用安全部队等现象依旧存在。名义上，培尼亚有一个宏伟的犯罪预防策略。然而，他真正努力的方向始终集中在经济上。谋杀率可能略有回落,但敲诈勒索和绑架率仍居高不下。大亨们从事间谍工作并且贿赂法官。对于大部分墨西哥人而言，伊瓜拉就是一个提醒穷人与富人间司法差距的典型。