Tijuana mayor-elect plans his first moves
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20040808-9...
By Sandra Dibble
August 8, 2004
TIJUANA ? The tigers paced behind bars inside Jorge Hank Rhon's private zoo. His 400 dogs were nowhere to be seen. A lone canary chirped in a birdcage
as Tijuana's next mayor contemplated the daunting tasks to come.
The candidate for Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, who promised to stamp out crime, pave streets and give impoverished residents
title to their land is now mayor-elect. Starting Dec. 1, Hank will have three years to resolve the problems of one of Mexico's fastest-growing and
most complex cities.
"There will be just one law, for everyone, and we'll punish anyone who doesn't comply," said Hank, 48, inside his office at the Agua Caliente
Racetrack one morning last week.
Hank, a populist candidate who campaigned on a law-and-order platform, won the election by 4,802 votes ? 139,230 for the PRI versus 134,428 for the
National Action Party, or PAN ? and ended 15 years of dominance at City Hall by the PAN. Official results released yesterday by Baja California's
State Electoral Institute confirmed the narrow victory that Hank claimed late last Sunday.
His performance at City Hall will be watched closely as Mexico prepares for the 2006 presidential elections, and as his party campaigns to regain the
presidency it lost in 2000 to Vicente Fox of the PAN. Hank could face some politically difficult positions, as he will have to work with PAN
administrations at both the federal and state levels.
Despite his well-financed campaign that made its way to every corner of the city, many doubted Hank could win. Queries about his past dogged the
candidate ? from the killing of a journalist, to smuggling endangered animal skins, to U.S. allegations of money laundering, all of which he has
repeatedly denied.
But in the days that have followed his triumph, the questions have been changing: How will he govern? Whom will he appoint? How will he fulfill his
promises? How will he build relations with the governor of Baja California, and with his counterparts north of the border?
Hank estimates his wealth at $500 million, much of it in gambling-related businesses, including the Tijuana racetrack, where horses have not raced
since 1989 ? the result, Hank says, of a dramatic drop in the supply of thoroughbreds because of a U.S. tax on horse breeding. Hank's track is used
for dog races.
Hank says he has 7,000 employees in his various enterprises, including off-track betting businesses in Mexico, other parts of Latin America, and
Europe. But he has never run a city, much less one of 1.5 million residents, one of the fastest-growing in Mexico, a city with few resources to fight
daunting problems, from lack of infrastructure to crime to drug consumption.
How will he close drug houses? "Police know where they are. We'll close them and arrest people who are selling them, try them, and send them to jail."
Could there be violence? "Probably, but it's the decision that has to be taken," Hank said. "Drugs are a cancer that is decimating this city. It's
destroying our youth, our children. We have to shut them down, no matter what the cost."
Such promises may win over voters desperate for a solution to the city's high crime rates, but "he's quickly going to confront a series of problems
that the city faces on a daily basis," said Victor Alejandro Espinosa, a political analyst at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a think tank outside
Tijuana.
"Public administration is very complicated in Mexico. You have to build relationships with the state and the federal governments. You need to lobby
and negotiate. It's not the same as being on the campaign trail."
Jes?s Manuel S?ndez, head of Tijuana's Business Coordinating Council, an umbrella group that includes the Chamber of Commerce, said his group is eager
to work with Hank.
"If he complies with even 50 percent of what he's promised, he'll be playing an important role," S?ndez said. "We will be the first to complain if he
doesn't come through."
S?ndez said the group is encouraged by Hank's promises to support a light-rail system for the city, a politically tricky proj-ect because of its
effect on a vast network of taxi drivers, many of them allied with the PRI.
Many believe that Hank has his eye on higher political office and that will prompt him to try his hardest at being mayor.
"The PRI wants to recoup the governorship," said Jorge D'Garay, a political consultant and director of public relations at City Hall during the
mid-1990s. "If you want to do that, you have to perform well."
Hank has vowed that corruption will have no place in his administration, but he raised fears of just that last week when he told a Tijuana radio
station that he'd like to appoint a Mexico City police chief similar to Arturo "El Negro" Durazo, who led a force from 1976 to 1982 known for
brutality and corruption.
Durazo was arrested in 1984 by FBI agents in Puerto Rico after an international manhunt and served eight years of a 16-year prison term on
racketeering and weapons charges.
Durazo "imposed peace on the city," Hank said. "He applied the law. Anyone who committed a crime was punished. They've satanized him."
Hank said he has learned to shrug off criticism directed at himself and his late father, Carlos Hank Gonz?lez, a PRI politician who made a fortune
while serving in a series of public posts.
"The people in Tijuana knew who they were electing," said Jos? Larroque, a Tijuana attorney and member of the San Diego Dialogue, a binational civic
group that promotes cross-border ties. "You have to give the guy a chance to see how he performs."
Hank said he frequently crosses to San Diego, and he hopes to build relations with his counterparts north of the border. He does not have a fast-pass
"Sentri" card that requires special security clearance from the U.S. government, he said. He has not applied.
Asked how the Hank win would affect traditionally close ties between San Diego and Tijuana police, San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne replied,
"We'll just have to play this one out."
Police departments across the United States with cases in Mexico often turn to San Diego's two Mexico liaison officers to help expedite matters,
Lansdowne said.
"We have plans to meet with the mayor and whoever the mayor selects as the new chief of police," he said. "We'd like to see this continue."
Even if it doesn't, however, Lansdowne said his department should still be able to handle cases across the border.
"We have enough friends now in Tijuana that I think we can continue to have great relationships," he said.
National City Mayor Nick Inzunza, for one, said he looks forward to close ties with Hank.
"Tijuana needs a mayor like Jorge Hank Rhon, somebody that can get things done," Inzunza said. "It's refreshing to hear a mayor of Tijuana whose focus
is not on luring business. Instead, it's 'What can we do to help the poor people of Tijuana?' "
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