More shots traded in PAN vs. PRI narco connection battle: PRI knew drug routes

The war of words continued today, as another PAN presidential candidate fired back at PRI leaders who have demanded a retraction and apology by Mexican president Felipe Calderón for comments he made to the New York Times during a September 28 interview, published last weekend.

Ernesto Cordero, a former secretary of Mexico's Hacienda (the country's tax collection and budget analysis agency), said that "it's PRI who owes an apology to all of Mexico." Cordero told a press conference today that there are public statements made by former PRI leaders who have openly acknowledged the party's connection to organized crime as long as 30 years ago, enabling it to become much stronger. He pointed to admissions by Sócrates Rizzo, a former PRI mayor of Monterrey and governor of Nuevo Leon in the 1990s, as well as statements by Miguel de la Madrid, Mexico's PRI president from 1982-1988. Neither man had any immediate comment in response.

"Those people even knew the drug routes," Cordero quoted Sócrates Rizzo as saying.

The PAN pre-candidate also noted that in many states which are controlled by PRI governments narcoviolence is severe, including Nuevo León, Coahuila, Nayarit, Veracruz and Quintana Roo.