Mexican cabinet shakeup includes Attorney General

Mexican president Felipe Calderon announced several important changes to his cabinet this week including the money-saving elimination of three ministerial posts. The most vital change, however, was the resignation of the country’s Attorney General.

President Felipe Calderon praised outgoing A.G. Eduardo Medina Mora for his "professionalism, his commitment and loyalty to Mexico." Yet neither Calderon nor Medina Mora gave reasons why the latter quit from being Mexico’s top cop though the president claimed that Medina Mora has been asked to serve as a “part of Mexico's diplomatic corps”.

Medina Mora was the brains behind Mexico’s toughen anticrime strategy that has suffered more downs than ups. Despite the dispatching of over 45,000 troops nationwide under the plan, violence continues to rise especially in the northern border states. (This might explain Calderon’s pick of ex-Chihuahua attorney general Arturo Chavez to replace Medina Mora). Furthermore, the change may mean a new shift in law enforcement tactics:

More than 13,000 people have died since Mr. Calderon took office, according to newspaper estimates, most victims of internecine warfare between drug cartels fighting over drug routes to the U.S. and increasingly lucrative Mexican drug markets.

Mr. Medina Mora's departure is a boost for Public Security Minister Genaro García Luna: The two men had clashed over Mr. García Luna's plans to create a single national police force under his command. Mexico's Congress killed that plan, but Mr. García Luna has begun creating a de facto national police, his new Federal Police force.

Image- AFP
Online Sources- Christian Science Monitor, Al Jazeera English, Wall Street Journal, AP