El circo (song)
The lyrics describe two brothers, "Carlos" and "Raúl" (in reference to Carlos Salinas de Gortari, president of Mexico from 1988 and 1994, and his brother Raúl Salinas de Gortari), who form a "circus" (a drug cartel) and get rid of the other "circuses" in the country. After the brothers get wealthy, Raúl makes Carlos' money disappear (a reference to the Mexican peso crisis) and their circus ends. Raúl is jailed, while Carlos leaves the country, and the people are finally at peace, unless another circus arrives and the story repeats itself.
Carlos Salinas de Gortari
On February 28, 1995, Zedillo ignited a tremendous political crisis versus Carlos Salinas; for this, he staged a brief hunger strike to protest the arrest of his older brother Raúl Salinas de Gortari (see below) as well as the accusations of responsibility for the country's economic travails that his successor as President, Ernesto Zedillo, aimed at him. He abandoned his campaign, which had been backed by the United States, to become the Director-General of the World Trade Organization. He left Mexico for self-imposed exile and settled in Ireland. Beyond the disputes over responsibility for Mexico's economic problems, Salinas's reputation was to be further clouded by a series of controversies involving close family members.