FOR most of Felipe Calderón's four-and-a-half years as Mexico's president, voters have worried more about jobs than crime. Since 2001 average income growth per person has been below 1% a year, one of the lowest rates in the world. Whereas the drug war has raged mainly along the cocaine trail, with two-thirds of its estimated 40,000 killings occurring in just 3% of the country's municipalities, economic hardship has touched nearly everyone.

That is changing. For the first time under Mr Calderón, security is now a greater concern for Mexicans than the economy is. That is partly because GDP is growing again: last year it rose by 5.5%. But it is also because the violence caused by the crackdown on gangs continues to spread. Last year the government recorded more than five times as many mafia-linked murders as in 2007. A tally by Reforma, a newspaper, suggests that this year has been worse still. In March Mr Calderón's approval ratings dipped below 50% for the first time.

The restless mood of voters comes as Mexico begins its countdown to a presidential election next summer. The race will unofficially begin on July 3rd, when three states elect new governors. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled the country for 71 years until 2000, is expected to win all of them, boosting its hopes of retaking the presidency. A convincing victory in Mexico state, the country's most populous, would be particularly valuable to the PRI. The departing governor, Enrique Peña Nieto, is almost certain to be its presidential candidate, and he will need a clean handover on his home turf.

As Mr Peña gains momentum, the PRI's rivals are still struggling to launch their campaigns. Mr Calderón has unsubtly backed his finance minister, Ernesto Cordero, for the candidacy of his conservative National Action Party (PAN). But polls suggest that Mr Cordero is less popular than both Santiago Creel, who lost the 2005 PAN primary, and Josefina Vázquez Mota, a former education secretary. The leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) is torn between Marcelo Ebrard, the moderate mayor of Mexico City, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a populist who lost to Mr Calderón in 2006 but still claims to be Mexico's “legitimate president”. Since Mr López Obrador says he will run for a smaller party if he loses the PRD nomination, the pragmatic Mr Ebrard may choose to wait for a clear run in 2018.

So far the opposition has been reluctant to set out its policies on crime. The PRD has avoided the topic, perhaps because prosecutors say some of its members in Michoacán state were involved with the mobs. The PRI has focused on the economy. Amid this “failure of the entire political class” to suggest alternatives, says Edgardo Buscaglia, a law professor at Mexico City's ITAM university, the public may consider radical measures like legalising drugs.

Explore our interactive map of Mexico's drug traffic routes, "cartel" areas and crime-related homicides

Citizens' movements are stepping in. Until recently, Mexico's “indolent civil society…left everything to the government,” says Alejandro Martí, a sports-goods businessman who has advocated judicial reform since the kidnap and murder of his 14-year-old son in 2008. Crime victims have now found a leader in Javier Sicilia (pictured), a writer whose 24-year-old son was killed in March by thugs linked to drug gangs. Mr Sicilia led a “peace caravan” of thousands to Mexico City and then to Ciudad Juárez, the country's most violent city. Another group has filled public fountains with blood-red dye. On June 23rd Mr Calderón held a televised meeting with Mr Sicilia and relatives of the dead or disappeared. “We must ask forgiveness for not protecting the life of the victims,” he said, “but not for having acted against the criminals who are killing them.”

Yet Mr Sicilia's supporters, a mixture of leftists, liberation theologists and ordinary victims who are “hasta la madre” (have “had it up to here”), are still squabbling over their demands, such as whether the army should get off the streets at once or withdraw gradually. One useful concession would be a truth commission to determine exactly how many lives the drug war has taken and how. (Many victims' families doubt the government's claim that most of the dead are criminals.)

The biggest obstacle to better security policies is corruption. Mr Buscaglia reckons that criminal gangs make political contributions in 60% of Mexican campaigns. Spending in the Mexico state governor's race is “clearly beyond what the law authorises,” says Luis Rubio, the head of CIDAC, a think-tank. Yet precious few politicians have been hauled into court. “Until we start seeing indictments against all parties,” says Mr Buscaglia, “the beginning of the end will still be far away.”