THE BORDER REPORT

Manuel Clouthier Carrillo is fast becoming my favorite Mexican politician. The Sinaloan Congressman was the publisher of Noroeste newspaper until last spring when he resigned his position to run for Congress. His father, Manuel J. Clouthier, was the PAN candidate for the presidency in 1988 against the PRI’s Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the PRD’s Cuathemoc Cardenas, whom many in Mexico believed had actually won the presidency. He died in a car accident a year later.

His son, Clouthier Carrillo, an intense gorilla of a man, has sent waves of panic through Mexico’s conservative party. Last week, he told the press that the Mexican government is protecting his state’s narco-traffickers; one of those secreto a voces that everyone knows but isn’t supposed to talk about in polite company. He blamed Pres. Felipe Calderón for this, saying the president has left Sinaloa untouched in his war against the cartels. Then he told the world that he will not seek the gubernatorial candidacy because”you cannot govern Sinaloa without an alliance with both (the federal government and the drug lords) and I will not establish a treaty with organized crime. And goddammit, if the federal government does not want to commit to Sinaloa, what the fook are they doing here?”

Outraged PAN-istas have criticized him vehemently for his remarks against Pres. Felipe Calderón and demanded he apologize for the regateada. More fuel to his rage; his response: “the chamaquitos have no idea what it is like to live in Sinaloa.”

I met him a few years ago when he granted me an interview at his newspaper offices in Culiacán.

At the time, he was furious that the bishop of the Culiacán church had rejected his formal plan for inducting the Catholic Church into the fight against organized crime. His plan seemed simple enough, if a little benign. Engage the church to help protest against the influence of organized crime in the city. He compared it to a similar plan used in Palermo, Italy, a few years prior that seemed to consist of nothing more than the power of mass prayer.

“Pray! That’s all I asked them to do! Pray! Goddam these people! Pray!” he shouted, pounding his fist on the table. The bishop declined the plan, leading Clouthier into another fit of rage:

“En Sinaloa, hay que dar huevos, no nalgas! amáres!”

Like many people I admire in Mexico, Clouthier doesn’t say anything that is not painfully obvious to even the most casual observer. But holding these conversations isn’t something that Mexicans seem very eager to engage in.

And the PAN-istas, already floundering with the resignation of Fernando Gomez Mont, Calderón’s Secretary of the Interior, don’t want Clouthier Carrillo to rattle cages. My experience with the man is that he thrives on rattling cages and making people squirm. We’ll see how that works out.

Keep your eye on Mexico’s politics for the next few days. Calderón has been the target of the leftist, destructive PRD and the scheming centrist PRI and this has helped him within his own party. But now his own party is turning against him.