Living in Merida and Yucatecan politics

On Sunday night, I moved in to my host person's house. I am staying with a 80-something year old woman  who has been very welcoming and always reminds me that "es su casa"- it's your house. There is a woman who cooks and cleans for her who lives here also, and another woman who comes and helps less frequently. It's definitely an older house, but clean.
Members of her large family come to visit pretty frequently. I have never met people so interested, passionate and vocal about politics. Whenever her family is here, there is always a very heated political debate. They hardly waste time greeting each other before jumping into debate, always mentioning "la gobernadora ignorante"- the ignorant governor. They debate (always very animated, as is everyone here) for an hour or so, then kiss each other on the cheek and go on their way. The first night I stayed with her, I had Yucatecan Politics 101 and received my first lecture from my host woman's son (maybe 50 or so years old), who is a political journalist here.  "I am embarrassed to tell you how corrupt the government is here" he told me, even briefly switching to English to emphasize that he is "ashamed" of the corruption. "More corrupt that you can even imagine" he said. After more discussion, I offered that, if nothing else, the peninsula is the safest place in the whole country, to which he agreed but claims this is only because we are nearly surrounded by water. Drugs can't be conveniently trafficked out of the Yucatan like they can out of border cities like Ciudad Juarez, nor would it be convenient for drug cartels to locate here because they are so far from their main market, the United States. This is a safe area by geographic "suerte" (luck). (This is a controversial viewpoint and many feel that the police here are significantly less corrupt and tolerant of crime than in the rest of the country) Like everyone else, he emphasizes that we need to close the cartels' routes into the U.S. because business from the U.S. is what makes this trade so lucrative.
It has been interesting and it's clear I need to start reading the local newspaper...!