Arresting Mexican kingpin 'el Chapo' hardly means the drug war is over

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, the head of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, was captured in the beach resort town of Mazatlan early Saturday morning. Photograph: Eduardo Verdugo/AP

On Saturday morning, Mexican soldiers captured the world's most wanted drug trafficker, Joaquín 'el Chapo' Guzmán. Since 2001, Chapo has been head of the Sinaloa cartel, an organization responsible for up to 30% of the cross-border drug trade as well as a trafficking network with global reach. Chapo's arrest feels like the end of an era. But, beyond the media buzz, what does it all mean?

Over the past year, the governing party - the PRI - has managed to take out many of the country's top kingpins. In July 2013, they arrested Miguel Treviño Morales, aka Z40, head of the murderous Zetas; a month later, they got Mario Ramírez Treviño, aka X20, head of the Gulf cartel; and earlier this year, they captured Dionisio Loya Plancarte, of the Knights Templars. On the streets, murder rates are down. And even cities like Ciudad Juárez are recovering. Chapo's capture seems to confirm what the PRI has been saying since President Peña Nieto came to power. We are serious about lowering violence and we are serious about dismantling organized crime. Is it time then, for cynics to start believing? Is President Peña Nieto, as this week's Time headline claimed 'Mexico's saviour'?

The answer, somewhat inevitably, is yes and no. Yes, the PRI is serious about giving the impression that violence is decreasing. Mass graves and decapitated torsos are bad for business. As a result, control of the media, particularly the crime news, has been tightened. Out in the provinces, intimidation and murder have silenced many local newspapers. But, despite the incessant whiff of a government cover-up, there is some substance to the PRI's propaganda. Big set piece battles between rival cartels have petered out. Although the PRI has fiddled the statistics, the homicide rate is down.

As the PRI knows, insecurity is also bad electoral juju. Furthermore, the PRI is extremely good at the kind of realpolitik that this type of peace-making entails. The party has extensive connections in the sweaty Michoacán hot lands and the mountain villages of Sinaloa. PRI politicians are experienced in taking the temperature of local politics. And, PRI members are well versed in the complex blend of targeted violence, co-option, and autonomy needed to swing these deals.

But no, these arrests do not demonstrate that the PRI is serious about dismantling organized crime. In fact, Peña Nieto's successes follow a depressingly familiar pattern. In the first 18 months of previous PRI regimes, most presidents have taken out high profile narcos. José López Portillo (1976-1982) started his presidency by announcing his support for Operation Condor, a US-backed anti-drugs campaign. Within a year Sinaloa kingpin, Pedro Aviles, was killed in a shootout with the federal police. A decade later, President Carlos Salinas (1988-1994), keen to persuade the US to sign up to NAFTA, promised to attack organized crime. Within a year kingpin Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo was in jail.

Despite these arrests, political support for the cartels continued. After Aviles's death, López Portillo handed control of the drug trade to the surviving, government-controlled traffickers. After Gallardo's arrest, Salinas backed the rival Gulf cartel. In return, his brother received millions of dollars in bribes.

El Chapo's arrest, then, is true to form; the denouement of the PRI's traditional early term attempt to appear tough on crime. What happens next will define the Peña Nieto administration. How does the PRI envisage the new agreement between the state and organized crime? Before Saturday morning, drug war watchers assumed the government had allied with Chapo to draft a more stable status quo. Now competing theories abound.

Perhaps, the government will partner with Chapo's less high profile, less violent Sinaloa associates like Ismael 'el Mayo' Zambada or Juan José 'el Azul' Esparragoza. El Mayo looks a doubtful candidate. US and Mexican authorities have arrested most of his relatives. One son is currently languishing in a Michigan prison, making embarrassing claims of DEA collusion. El Azul, a negotiator and conciliator, looks like a more likely candidate. He matches the business acumen of Chapo, but without the taste for ostentatious risk or violence. His motto 'the business of drug trafficking is not with bullets' could be music to PRI ears.

Or perhaps the PRI will try to move away from the Sinaloa cartel altogether. Top journalist, Rafael Loret de Mola, has evidence linking Peña Nieto to Chapo's old rivals, the Beltrán Leyva brothers. Again, possibilities are slight. Most Beltran Leyvas are now dead or imprisoned. Others speak in hushed tones of the resurgence of the Gulf cartel. The group were allies of Peña Nieto's backer, ex-president, Carlos Salinas. And they have made recent gains, especially after the capture of Zeta leader, Z40. But again, the likelihood is low. Arrests, infighting, and the high toll of their recent conflict with the Zetas have weakened the organization.

The most likely scenario is that the PRI is trying to overhaul the entire system of organized crime, taking out the top capos, cowing the major cartels, before welding together a new state-led confederation of subordinate organizations.

PRI strategists are able historians and the gambit has precedent. During the 1970s, rival gangs battled for control of the Mexican drug trade. And in some places, levels of violence reached today's levels. In response, the state took out the major leaders. When this was done, the Mexican secret service - the Department of Federal Security or DFS - moved in to control the trade, allying with the remaining traffickers to create a nationwide federation. The DFS divvied the border up into multiple zones or plazas and gifted them to individual traffickers. These traffickers were expected to transport drugs, pay a percentage to the government, and most importantly, keep violence and press coverage to a minimum.

But in today's climate, such a strategy has major risks. Drug trafficking has changed radically since the 1970s. Tested PRI policies may not work. Drug gangs are no longer small, poorly equipped, easily cowed groups. They are enormous, heavily armed, multinational organizations, reluctant to take orders. At the same time, rivalries between gangs are no longer minor, village-level affairs. Subordinating them to the PRI and getting them to work in harmony could be a tricky business. Mexico's drug war could be around for some time.