Cartel-linked Border Politician Loses Congressional Bid in Mexico

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Coahuila — A former governor singled out in U.S. and Spanish courts as a surrogate of Los Zetas cartel lost his bid for Mexico’s Congress and a chance at receiving prosecutorial immunity.

This week, the Mexican border state of Coahuila was on edge as the region underwent an electoral process plagued with allegations of voter fraud at the highest level. As Breitbart Texas reported, thousands of citizens peacefully protested the alleged theft of the election by members of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

For more than 70 years, the PRI has maintained some sort of power throughout Mexico in elections plagued with accusations of voter fraud. As Breitbart Texas reported, the political party has a long history of ties with Mexican drug cartels. Various governors from the PRI were exposed in U.S. court testimony and documents for working with the same drug cartels responsible for violence around the nation.

One of those former governors, Humberto Moreira, was blamed for giving protection to Los Zetas in exchange for bribes. After Moreira’s term, his brother Ruben assumed power and is about to conclude his term. Election watchdogs expected the oppositino party to succeed following the Moreiras, but were stunned by upset victories thereafter.

In that election, Moreira was kicked out of the PRI and ran with the Partido Joven in an attempt to win a plurinominal congressional seat. Mexico’s law provides prosecutorial immunity to federal elected officials. That attempt at protection failed this week when the final tally of the votes revealed that his party missed the threshold needed for him to get a congressional seat by only a handful of votes.

According to Coahuila state law, Partido Joven needed to achieve three percent of the total votes in order to remain an active party, and for Moreira to win a congressional seat. The party only received 35,113 votes or 2.87 percent of the total.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon.  You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.