AGUA PRIETA, Sonora - As Mexico's election day approaches, the word is on the lips of many in this border city - from political insiders to humble street vendors: cacique.
Pronounced "ka-SEE-kay," it means "political boss" and harks back to the PRI party's decades of dictatorship over Mexico.
In Agua Prieta, many use the word to describe two-time Mayor Vicente Terán.
Mexico's constitution prohibits consecutive re-election, so the omnipresent border politician and businessman has resigned from the mayor's office for the second time to run again for Sonora's legislature. His wife is running to replace him as mayor, also for the second time.
The PRI's hold on Mexico's presidency ended in 2000, but the democratic reforms that have swept the country have not transformed the politics of many smaller locales, where ruling clans have found a way to stay in power, said Jean Francois Prud'homme, a political scientist at the Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City.
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"In Mexico, the tradition of local politics was never a very democratic political tradition. An old system of political control, of caciques and so forth, is part of the fabric of political life," Prud'homme said. "Those old ways still pervade within the new democratic institutions."
Terán first held the mayor's office from 1997 to 2000, then his wife, Irma Villalobos, ran for mayor while he ran for legislature. They both won and served until 2003. Now the couple are trying to repeat their 2000 pattern.
Their faces are omnipresent in Agua Prieta, looking down from billboard-sized banners downtown and smaller signs affixed to light poles around town. Their slogan: "You know that we deliver."
"There's nothing truer than that statement," said former Douglas Mayor Ray Borane, who worked as Terán's adviser on border issues this term. "When he says he's going to do something, it gets done."
But critics say Terán uses his own vast wealth, the municipal treasury and fear - stoked by old U.S. accusations that he was a drug trafficker - to win people over. Asked if he's afraid to run against Terán, his opponent, PAN party candidate Hugo Rivera said, "You should always be afraid of this type of person."
Personal connections
The election for local offices in Mexico occurs July 1, the same day voters will choose a new president. In places far from Mexico City, the local elections are a much more personal affair.
"The little towns in Sonora and a large part of Mexico are just big families," said Oscar Castro Valdez, publisher of an online political news site based in Hermosillo called Dossier Político. "There, it's the man, or the family name, not the party."
It's not just true in Agua Prieta. Even in Sonora's bigger border city, Nogales, a leading candidate for mayor is Marco Antonio Martinez Dabdoub, a top businessman who descends from two of the city's powerful families. He is running for his second term as mayor after leaving office in 2009.
In Agua Prieta, Terán has come to be a powerful name that overwhelms party designations. Vicente Terán, who made his fortune in the 1980s importing satellite dishes, made his name politically in the PRI party of the 1990s. But last decade the party rejected him as a candidate, so in 2009 he ran for mayor as a member of the tiny PSD and won. This year, the PRI has welcomed him back.
Terán and Villalobos initially accepted, then declined an interview request for this story.
Prud'homme, the Mexico City political scientist, likens Terán and others to old-style Chicago political bosses, using patronage to maintain their support.
"It was very ingrained into the political life of Mexico," Prud'homme said. "I think it's still very important - being able to do favors, being able to distribute public goods to certain groups of people."
This term, Terán's administration has given away thousands of laptop computers to students as well as food boxes to the poor. In private, he continues to hold group quinceañera parties for girls from families who can't pay for the events themselves, Borane said. He estimates their parties have feted at least 500 girls.
"They depend on the downtrodden, on the poor people," Borane said of Terán and Villalobos. "Those people respond to them because they do (things) for them."
That's what persuaded Jesús López Cruz. López Cruz, who lives in a neighborhood of sandy roads but decent houses in southern Agua Prieta, had aligned himself with the PAN, Terán's main opponents.
During this term, however, the city brought electricity to the area. Now his home and his adjacent junkyard are electrified, and he's opened an Internet cafe across the street. Vicente and Irma have his vote.
Rumors of drug ties
Terán's critics say there is a more sinister side to his support - that it is tinged by fear. Indeed, some residents interviewed this month in a poor Agua Prieta neighborhood were reluctant to be quoted when talking critically about him. Some of that may trace back to the long-standing belief - always denied by Terán - that he is connected to the border's underworld.
In 1997, when Terán first ran for mayor, the Dallas Morning News reported he was on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's list of Mexico's top 20 drug traffickers. In the same story, Terán said he had destroyed the landing strips on his ranches in order to squelch the rumors of drug-laden aircraft landing there.
While Terán has long denied being involved in crime, he does have a long-ago criminal history in Tucson, documented in Pima County Superior Court records. In 1974, at age 17, Terán arranged to sell 1,000 pounds of marijuana to a man who was an undercover Tucson police officer. When he couldn't come up with the pot in time for the sale, he arranged to rob the buyers instead, but first he was nabbed by police who were monitoring him.
In 1985, Pima County Superior Court Judge Thomas Meehan cleared his record, citing Terán's good behavior and charitable donations.
Still, the perception persists of Terán as a figure with a foot in the underworld. It's been perpetuated this year by Terán's choice of a campaign manager.
That man, Nahúm Acosta, worked as a leader of former President Vicente Fox's advance teams, preparing sites that the president planned to visit. In February 2005, Acosta was arrested and accused of passing the president's plans to high-level drug traffickers, a story that raised nationwide concern. Acosta denied the accusations and after two months in jail complained about his treatment to Mexico's Human Rights Commission.
Eventually, Acosta was released and authorities dropped the case. He returned to Agua Prieta and switched allegiances from the PAN to the left-leaning PRD, running for mayor against Terán in the 2009.
In an article in El Imparcial newspaper from June 2009, Acosta even accused Terán of buying votes. Now both the writer of that story, Rafael Gallegos, and Acosta have joined Vicente Terán's team.
Contact reporter Tim Steller at 807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet.com
