Mexican president reshuffles cabinet

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) — President Felipe CalderonPresident Felipe Calderon on Monday announced changes to three of the most important cabinet positions in his government, including the overseer of Mexico’s battle against the drug cartels.

Mexico’s attorney general, minister of agriculture and director of state oil company Pemex resigned, Calderon said.

Calderon named Arturo Chavez, the top federal prosecutor in the state of Chihuahua, to replace outgoing Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora.

Changes to the cabinet during a president’s term are not unusual in Mexico, but the timing of the high-level departures attracted some attention.

“There was a need to make some changes because there has been increasing criticism” that drug-related violence in Mexico remains unabated, Ana Maria Salazar, a television and radio political commentator in Mexico City, told CNN.

Calderon has made the fight against Mexico’s drug cartels a key part of his administration, sending more than 45,000 soldiers throughout the country to help augment police that are often underpaid or corrupt. Yet, the killings have not slowed, with some 4,850 cartel-related deaths this year alone, according to a tally by the newspaper El Universal.

But Medina Mora’s exit, which had been rumored for months, does not mean a shift in the Mexican government’s strategy against the cartels, Salazar said.

The attorney general’s office, known by its spanish acronym PGR, is only one of a number of agencies that work together to combat the cartels, she said.

The ministry of public security and ministry of defense also coordinated and executed the current war against the drug lords, and their leadership seems stable, Salazar said.

Before becoming attorney general, Medina Mora had served as head of the public security ministry. Authorities notched a number of high-level arrests under his leadership.

Unlike other high-ranking anti-drug officials who have fallen from grace, Medina Mora was well-respected by U.S. authorities involved in the operations.

“One of his legacies is that he was viewed as an important counterpart for the U.S. government,” Salazar said.

Being close to the United States is not always a popular distinction in Mexico, but often a necessary one, observers say.

Calderon’s chosen successor for the attorney general role, Chavez, will have to be confirmed by the senate.

Chavez’s background as a prosecutor in Chihuahua, a border state home to violent Ciudad Juarez, could be both a plus and a minus for him, Salazar said.

Pemex Director Jesus Reyes Heroles will be succeeded by Juan Jose Suarez Coppel, a former finance director at Pemex who also worked in the finance ministry under former President Vicente FoxVicente Fox.

Rumors of Reyes Heroles’ impending departure had also been circulating in energy circles, George Baker, director of Houston-based consultancy Energia.com, told CNN.

A recent investigation that revealed millions of dollars of oil theft from pipelines gave the state oil monopoly a black eye.

According to authorities, thieves would sneak the stolen oil into the United States and sell it.

But the embarrassment over the report was not likely the only reason for Reyes Heroles resignation, Baker said.

Reyes Heroles, who had served as Pemex director since the middle of the previous administration, reportedly had a strained relationship with Energy Minister Georgina Kessel, Baker said.

Outgoing Agriculture Minister Alberto Cardenas, who had worked to keep staple food prices down last year during a bout of global inflation, will be replaced by Francisco Javier Mayorga, Calderon said.