AMLO and Cárdenas - reconciliation after all of these years?

AMLO, on tour in Michocán to promote his book and, inevitably, his 2012 candidacy, notably praised the Cárdenas clan, from Lázaro to Cuauhtémoc to Lazaro junior. This is interesting given the acrimonious relations between AMLO and CC the past decade, when AMLO as Mexico City mayor eclipsed CC as the most important figure within the PRD. Things got particularly bad, to recall, during the 2006 elections, when CC did not campaign for AMLO (he had for the longest contested his nomination as PRD´s presidential candidate, which would have been his fourth try), and refused to even saythat he voted for him. Moreover, CC as quickly recognized the victory of Felipe Calderón in 2006. This left much bitterness within the AMLO camp. I remember interviewing 6-7 of AMLO´s "secretaries" of his "legitimate government," and "traitor" was a common characterization. 


Yet the AMLO-CC spat was more a clash of egos rather than any programmatic differences; AMLO, for one, was recruited by CC in the fall of 1988- many andresmanuelistas tend to forget that AMLO was not with CC in the fateful 1988 election, remaining loyal to PRI until CC recruited him to finally bail PRI and join the Frente Democrático Nacional for the Tabasco state elections - and their trajectories mirror each other highly. CC, to recall, was highly anti-institutional, refused to declare himself ideologically in terms of left and right, was highly skeptical of institutional reform, such as the crucial 1995-6 electoral reforms - yet while he eventually moderated, AMLO kept up this discourse until this day. 


But back to the point of this news article: Given that both AMLO and CC heavily criticized the highly successful PAN-PRD state alliances, they appear to recall their common ground, particularly as it may include a PRD presidency for CC´s son Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, former governor of Michoacán, or other positions. Both, to be sure,  are highly critical of the leadership of Jesús Ortega of PRD.
It will be very interesting to see where Michocán Governor Leonel Godoy will stand. He is much closer to the Ortega camp ideologically and in terms of political trajectory, but owes much to both AMLO and CC. Much remains to be decided. 

Some more good news from Guanajuato: Investigation of ultra-activist judge

I don't hold too much faith in the judicial system of Guanajuato, a state that is governed my the falangist far right of the PAN, yet the announcement that there will now be a legal investigation of Carlos Alberto Llamas Morales, the judge who notoriously sentenced a woman who had a miscarriage to 27 years in prison,  must be regarded good news. May it be the end of the beginning of the end of the war against women in Guanajuato. 

(Not so) Friendly fire not always on the left: Espino compares Cálderon to... Chávez!

Manuel Espino, head of Organización Demócrata Cristiana de América (ODCA), or the "Christian Democratic International," and longstanding critic of Mexican President Felipe Calderón, ratched up the rhetoric a notch  yesterday by arguing Calderón could be compared to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in his "authoritarianism." The reason is Calderón's alleged interference in the process of electing Espino´s successor of this loose center-right organization of christian democratic parties.


Espino, one should note, is hardly a centrist, but a rather ardent rightwinger close to the extremist secret Catholic society El Yunque, and was one of the main responsible for the dirty campaign against AMLO in 2006. Yet ever since he was forced out as PAN party chief in 2008, he has been a bitter opponent of Calderón, publishing three books since 2008 bashing Calderón and his policies.

He certainly has a point regarding his ouster as party president: While Espino was duly elected president of PAN by its National Council (which is exactly the mechanism PRD should resort to, by the way), while Calderón resorted to a mechanism long practiced by PRI, and criticized by Calderón when he in turn was party president, namely where the president of he nation would simply select the party president by a dedazo, rather than through a vote in the party organs. Once president, Calderón threw this old conviction out the window and duly selected both Germán Martínez and César Nava as subsequent PAN presidents. Hence much of the bitterness toward Calderón, as well as programmatic differences: In my eyes Calderón is rather a centrist and far from as socially conservative as Espino. 


"Friendly fire" in Mexican politics thus does not always happen on the left. 

On Seguro Popular

Not too much of a news story per se - Salomón Chertorivski, head of CNPSS, dismisses former director of Social Security Santiago Levy's claim that Seguro Popular promotes the informal economy - but it is worth noting that  Seguro Social, a program to offer healthcare for the many Mexicans outside of the formal economy, has now reached 36 million, and may reach more than 50 by early 2011.


A bit of background in a recent article in Americas Quarterly:

In the early 1990s, a calculation of national health accounts by the Fundación Mexicana para la Salud revealed that more than half of total Mexican health care expenditure was individual, out-of-pocket payments. Families and individuals were paying from their own incomes or savings for health care procedures, including emergency care. In other words, half of the population lacked health insurance.

The realization that households—the poor, in particular—had been paying catastrophic, out-of-pocket sums changed public perceptions and provoked public discussion of the need to expand public health coverage. Policymakers suddenly began to look at how financial issues affected the provision of health care and levels of poverty among Mexican households. 

It has also paid electoral dividends. According to a recent scholarly treatise of the 2006 campaign, by Alberto Diaz-Cayeros et al,  the effects, and as such popularity, of Seguro Popular was one of the major factors why many poor voters went for PAN rather than the PRD in that year's presidential election. 


First launched by President Vicente Fox, Seguro Popular may thus remain as one of the major social achievements of the two PAN administrations. 

Ebrard-AMLO game of chess continues

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, in reiterating the agreement with AMLO (and other potential candidates) that the left's candidate will be decided based on whoever is ahead of the polls, now declared that the poll should not just be open to members of the parties in question (PRD, PT, Convergencia), but to any citizen. Here, AMLO's "Legitimate Government" and its affiliated masses, most of whom appear not to belong to any party, would appear to give AMLO an advantage, but now clearly Ebrard also thinks he might be able to mobilize non-party supporters behind his candidacy. 
What will be AMLO´s next move?

Zacatecas damage assessment: PRD´s electoral disaster on July 4th

PRD certainly had a rather brutal defeat in Zacatecas, going from 46.40 percent to 24.6 percent - a pretty stunning drop.

Why did this happen, and what can the PRD learn from this?
The most important lesson, as the PRD seems to acknowledge, is that PRI-style dedazos will backfire drastically. The PRD's candidate was seen as an imposition by Governor Amalia Garcia, whose lackluster administration has been a deep disappointment, in particularly for those who saw her as a possible candidate for the presidency.

(We´ll talk about the damage done by former priísta, former perredista, and now ardent petista, Senator Ricardo Monreal later).

Yet also it shows the poor party loyalty from many of the nominal perredistas who bailed ship and actually supported the PRI candidate (himself a former perredista!), such as Raymundo Càrdenas.
It is understandable that there will be disaffection among the party base and elite under such circumstances. But it nonetheless illustrates the amazing opportunism among even long-time PRD cadres, who jump ship to join their old archenemy PRI.
What is to be done?

So much for internal pacts of piece: Padierna wants Ortega out.

Dolores Padierna, nominal head of the PRD corriente Izquierda Democrática Nacional, and wife of the disgraced money-stuffer René Bejarano, for the umpteenth time demands Ortega´s resignation, despite that the PRD, under his lead, has not only withstood excessive friendly fire from AMLO, who campaigned against the PRD in 2009 (preceded by months-long debacle where losing candidate Alejandro Encinas refused to accept Ortega's victory), but managed to do what appeared impossible, overthrowing the 8-decades old authoritarian state governments of Oaxaca, Puebla, and Sinaloa. 


But now that her corriente apparently won quite a few municipalities and local deputies, she now clamors again for Ortega's head, arguing that her faction is now the strongest within the PRD. 


Miguel Borbosa, national coordinator of Nueva Iqzuierda, responded in kind: If you don't shut up, we will use our 2/3 majority in the PRD national council to kick you off the PRD's National Political Commission (not to be confused with the national secretariat, formerly known as the CEN).


More from La Jornada here. 


To be continued...

On AMLO jumping the gun

Mexico State Governor Enrique Peña Nieto argues AMLO is "overwhelmed" and that he is ahead of himself in terms of declaring his candidacy.  


The hipocricy slaps you in the face, given Peña Nieto's excessive promotion of himself, spending tens of millions of public money to tote his "achievements" as a governor, ahead of his official declaration as a candidate, sure as hell to come next year. 

Hector Tejonar, for example, has a very critical commentary in Milenio that directly deals with this subject, acusing the IFE on going soft on Peña Nieto´s self promotion.
It seems to me the criticism is excessive - the phenomenon of self promotion disguised a news is more of a loophole, and IFE doesn´t make the rules, only uphold them - but it adds fuel to the fire to AMLO, who defends his destape with the argument that three months of precampaigning is not enough given Peña Nieto´s media promotion. 
(AMLO also says he will seek the PRD candidacy "when the moment comes," and that it doesn´t worry  him that the PRD leadership doesn´t support him, as he has the support of the party masses. 


Again, it´s important to step back and assess AMLO's modus operandi:
- The law on precampaigning I realize is only three months. Yet because Peña Nieto is using public funds to promote himself, I have no other choice, and will willingly brake the law. 
- And, as noted earlier, while I promised to stick to the pact with PRD/PT/Convergencia, I just broke that too because otherwise Peña Nieto would have too much of an advantage 


What is one to make of this reasoning? Is this is a man one should trust the presidency with?

Another approach might be to launch a formal and extensive complaint to IFE, and onward to TEPJF, regarding Peña Nieto´s transgressions. But what does AMLO do? The other guy is breaking the law, so why the hell should I not. And this is the man who spoke of a moral reawakening, or something of that sorts, on Sunday at the Zócalo?

PAN Senator Gustavo Madero  says AMLO´s candidacy proclamation is "straining" the political environment. PRD Vice Coordinator Guadalupe Actosta Naranjo notes that should decide once and for all whether he will actually respect the outcome of the polls (as a means of choosing the left presidential candidate) or not. I couldn't agree more - but I really wonder if the highly astute Acosta Naranjo actually thinks there is any doubt that AMLO will break it, should he not be the frontrunner. 

AMLO as Tolstoy

An acerbic yet notable commentary on AMLO's new focus on "moral values" in order to fight the evils plaguing Mexico today. It is also quite funny. By renaissance writer-scholar Guillermo Sheridan.

Much ado about AMLO - and Ebrard

Not surprisingly, given AMLO's destape as presidential candidate this past Sunday, party colleagues, rivals etc  rush to offer their take on the situation. 
It's almost a year to the date since Ebrard admitted he was interested in the presidency.
Here's a run-down from El Universal on his strategy so far, in all essence one of "good governance" and highly publicized public works, as well as the expansion of social programs and creation of new ones.  


(His Prepa Si, for instance, appears an excellent initiative designed to help teenagers graduate with a bachillerato, or high school diploma.) 


As the article alludes to, being in power has both its advantages and disadvantages. Clearly Ebrard can use the programs to promote (in)directly his candidacy, but he cannot really promote, as does AMLO, a governmental project akin to AMLO's perennially vague "alternative project for the nation."


Ebrard's campaigning in favor of the July 4 alliances was also notable, especially when contrasted with AMLO's rejection of them. 


The honorable Senator Carlos Navarrete - one of the PRD's best assets - notes that AMLO is just"a pre candidate like the others," who will need to submit to the agreements negotiated with PRD/PT/Convergencia regarding who will be the left's candidate. I personally find it hard to believe that Navarrete truly thinks AMLO will respect any agreement whatsover. 


Alberto Anaya, PT leader, repeated obsequiously that he can have the PT party candidacy anytime (Read: "Please, please use us as we want to keep our party registry), claiming, in an exercise of utter sophistry, that this would still not breach AMLO's agreement. I mean, honestly, what is one to make of this sentence: "the PT already decided; nonetheless we will await the results of the poll"?


Luis Walton, leader of Convergencia - which competes with PT for the title of most-opportunist party in Mexico on the "left" - was a tad more cautious, noting that Ebrard was also in the running.  Dolores Padierna.... well, don't really care what she or IDN thinks. They will turn the cape to the wind no matter what - if Ebrard looks set to get the nomination, they will unceremoniously dump AMLO despite their prostrations of allegiance. 


Finally, as noted in an earlier post, AMLO's announcement would also likely lead to complains that he is breaching the new electoral rules on "pre-campaigning." Now, PAN has complained to the IFE about this issue. 

Sonoran saying of the day: Por montarse antes los becerros se pandean

PRI senator Beltrones was one of the major victors of the July 4 state elections, wrestling considerable power from Peña Nieto, given that the districts where Beltrones campaigned won, while those where the Golden Boy participated generally lost.

Regarding 2012, where Beltrones is increasingly the PRI frontrunner, the ex-governor of Sonora responded to journalists with a great vaquero saying: Por montarse antes los becerros se pandean

PRD corrientes

Speaking of PRD, Here's an excellent overview of the internal make-up

 of the PRD and its corrientes. While it is merely descriptive in the sense that it doesn't really analyze any differences between the corrientes, which I argue are real and substantial, it's very much updated. 

I find it odd that the article suggests that Bejarano will go for AMLO while Padierna will go for Ebrard- they are, after all, married, established the precursor to IDN together, and Padierna is as slavishly pro AMLO as they come - but that aside it looks very correct to me. 


(great graphic here, except from egregious error that Socorro Ceseñas is close to Jésus Ortega!)

AMLO 2012, again

AMLO's declaration of his candidacy for 2012, not unexpectedly, gets the full front-page treatment in La Jornada. 
(not so in Milenio or El Universal)


While I respect this immensely important newspaper for so many reasons, its hagiographic treatment of AMLO is more than embarrassing at times.
It did note, though, something that caught my attention as well: 

... a little bit before two in the afternoon, in the climax of his speech, López Obrador said, "Do you agree that we go as a movement for the 2012 elections? The crowd, exhausted after listening to more than 36 speakers, responded very softly, "yes"...

OK, don't want to exaggerate the point, as the crowd certainly surged to life when AMLO repeated the question a time or two, but the first response was a bit... anti climatic. Perhaps because the declaration was, in all essence, old news.  


Oddly enough, of the three newspapers cited above, only one commentary takes note of AMLO's broken promise to stick by the pact of the "best positioned" candidate.
(to compensate, it is a pretty funny commentary)


I stand a bit corrected regarding the PRD, which was indeed represented on stage - though not by anyone from Nueva Izquierda. Or Foro Nuevo Sol. Or from PRD-mexiquense.
I couldn't make out the faces, but apparently Alejandro Encinas was there, with his sidekick Ricardo Ruiz (former leader of PRD-DF), DF transportation minister  Armando Quintero (whose UNyR may at this point back either Ebrard or AMLO), Martí Batres (as always up for the highest bidder), Laura Velázquez (DF sec. of economic development), and of course Dolores Padierna of IDN, wife of the disgraced René Bejarano, whose IDN likes to portray itself as the most "radical" of AMLO's defenders but whose cadres have been involved in more corruption and other scandals than any corriente. 


Clara Brugada, delegation chief of Iztapalapa after the shameful Juanito incident was there, as well as a handful of pejista senators from the PRD and PT. When/if Ebrard gains traction, we'll see how many will bail ship. 


Finally, another question that pops into my mind: Will not this be a clear breach of the new electoral rules regarding "pre-campaigns," as determined by the 2007 Electoral Reform?

Now we know (as if we didn´t already): AMLO is going for 2012.

In a mass meeting at the Zócalo today, AMLO dispensed with any ambiguity and declared he is a candidate for 2012.

He has every right to, to be sure, and his "Legitimate Government" ad its 2-3 million or so adherents clearly forms the basis of a mass electoral movement.
I remember clearly two years ago when he and other members of this outfit explicitly denied that the members of the Legitimate Government would ever form the basis of an electoral movement. Clearly this was false. He either had a change of heart or intended so from the very beginning - it's hard to tell. 

Regardless, while he has a democratic right to be a candidate, it does not speak well of AMLO that he is not a man of his word. In his recent book, as well as on countless other occasions, he declared he would not seek power for the sake of power, but rather decline in favor of a "better positioned" candidate, if one existed. This has now been proven an utter lie.  
Rather than sticking to the deal, it is now clear that AMLO´s project is about one man: himself. To hell with anyone else; he is the only one capable of salvaging Mexico. The many posters carried by his supporters that stated, "Only the people can save the people," really mean: Only AMLO can save the people. And he would therefore completely risk splitting the left vote in the process. 


From the first speeches by state representatives of the Legitimate Government to the many signs around the Zócalo, it was clear this was the launching of his candidacy. 


The antipathy toward the PRD leadership was clear. When some of the speakers mentioned the "Chuchos" (Jésus Ortega and Zambrano, leaders of the majority faction that now controls the PRD), many were booing. While the Convergencia and PT leaders were up there with AMLO, as far as I could see no one from the PRD 


His speech was pretty much a rehash of his "Alternative Proyect for the Nation" from the previous campaign, slightly updated. Of new proposals was to democratically elect Supreme Court Judges, and there was also a focus on "moral values" and of the family.
The latter drew my thoughts to Roger Bartra´s earlier characterization of AMLO as a conservative populist


Well, now we know. AMLO broke his earlier promises and has now launched his campaign for 2012 without waiting for anyone else. The next question will be: When and in what matter will he leave the PRD. 

Porfirio Muñoz Ledo against "vulgar pragmatism"? Please....

It is often noted that Porfirio Muñoz Ledo has held pretty much every high office in Mexico with the exception of the presidency. His political trajectory is certainly notable, as is his historic role in the democratic transition and the creation of the PRD. 

Muñoz Ledo, now 77, is reflecting on his life in a recent column in El Universal. Yet to hear this ultrapragmatic turncoat warn against "vulgar pragmatism" is a cruel joke. Muñoz Ledo was pretty much out of the public sight when he saw a chance to jump on AMLO's Legitimate Government project, rescuing him pretty much from political obscurity. In the process, the old social democrat - he was pretty much responsible for enrolling the PRD in the Socialist International - drastically radicalized, even warning of (calling for?) La Ruptura Que Viene. He left the PRI to join the PRD, then left the PRD to seek the presidency on the ticket of the now-extinct conservative PARM, then stepped down to support the PAN and Vicente Fox - for which he was rewarded with a nice ambassadorship - and now has resurfaced as a national deputy for the "Workers Party," the PT - which is absolutely anything but a workers party, but a purely opportunistic assemblage being utilized by - and is utilizing - AMLO. 

Happy birthday Porfirio, may you live long and well - but please, don't call the kettle black. 

Bit step forward in SME/Luz y Fuerza conflict

Legislators from all over the political spectrum rightly hailed the resumption of direct dialogue between the Mexican Syndicate of Electricians, SME, and the recently appointed interior minister, José Francisco Blake Mora. It is a big step forward from the intransigent and utterly unproductive line of former interior minister Fernando Gómez Mont. Good riddance, again.  

Ebrard: "I don't have anything to do there"

Ahead of Sunday's mass rally at the Zocalo, Ebrard made it clear that he would not attend, and as well that the Zócalo "does not belong to anyone" - even AMLO. Self-evident truths, and there is no particular reason why Ebrard should attend the rally, which starts at 10 am Sunday, but in today's political climate everything will be read in the light of the increasing tensions between Ebrard and AMLO. For instance, Ebrard's insistance that AMLO's rally (which could be the start of his presidential campaign, in particularly if he leaves the PRD) is merely  "a meeting like every other."

Ortega until 2011?

Ebrard and a range of governors are pushing for PRD President Jesús Ortega to stay on until August 2011, when the last round of state elections ends before the 2012 presidential election. 


Before the andresmanualistas and bejaranistas start howling "¡Continuismo! it is worth recalling that while Ortega's 3-year tenure was supposed to start in March 2008, when he won the internal PRD elections, this heavily disputed and dirty election was not settled until November 2008 by the courts.  It therefore makes quite sense that he would serve for the period for which he actually was elected.  


A bit more from La Jornada here. 

New "social democratic" party in DF

Senator René Arce, aware that his chances of becoming the PRD's mayoral candidate in Mexico City evaporated after the Iztapalapa debacle in 2009, has now declared he will form a new party. Arce's claims that the new party will "not be founded on populism, the returning of favors and clientelism" rings rather hollow given his group's resorting to these very same mechanism's in their former stronghold of Iztapalapa. 


The new party, which apparently will attract a range of former perredistas and members of the now-extint Partido Socialdemócrata, will nonetheless likely serve to hurt the PRD's chances of retaining Mexico City. 

When the shoe is on the other foot: PAN government impugns IFE

Here's a first: For the first time since the IFE's creation, the Federal government takes IFE to court (the TEPJF) for its recent resolution on President Felipe Calderón's electoral interference. (IFE decided Calderón had violated the constitution  by proselytizing ahead of the July 4 elections).

The Yunque Strikes Back

The courageous, intrepid reporter Lydia Cacho just held an interesting chat in El Universal. 


Her Monday column in El Universal  is very well worth looking at as it details the gruesome policies of the ultraconservative Guanajuato government of Juan Manuel Oliva.


Her latest book, Esclavas del Poder, deals with the victims of human trafficking. I only read an excerpt in Proceso but it appears a crucial read on this topic.


. 

Where are the Mexican philanthropists?

Yet another great article from ITAM's Denise Dresser in this weeks's Proceso. 

If important people like Oprah Winfrey, Eli Broad, Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, John Doerr and  Pete Peterson –among others– are ready to consider and assume the challenge of giving away half of their net worth, where are Carlos Slim, Jorge Larrea, Emilio Azcárraga, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, and other comparable Mexican  multimillionaires?

Presidential interference during election time: Pending business for electoral reform

President Calderón was deemed  by the Federal Electoral Institute to have interfered unduly in the recent election and directly having violated electoral law through broadcasting "electoral propaganda" in TV channels. This brings to mind sour memories regarding Vicente Fox´s brazenly illegal interference in the 2006 election. 


(read Luis Carlos Ugalde´s 2008 Así lo viví for a great rundown).


Yet just like with Fox in 2006, IFE also declared it is powerless to sanction Calderón, as the president enjoys virtual "immunity." Yet another pending issue of electoral reform. 


More info from El Universal and La Jornada on the topic. 

Will AMLO leave the PRD Sunday? Todos al Zócalo

Much speculation regarding whether AMLO will finally announce his departure from the PRD on Sunday, when he will hold a rally in the Zócalo in Mexico City. He has recently sent signals that this is imminent. Given the fact that he also practically refused to campaign for the PRD in 2009 and as well in the recent elections of July 4, it should hardly be a surprise.
Sadly, it also speaks volumes of AMLO. After his favored candidate Alejandro Encinas lost the election to become party president, rather than to accept the insitutionalized leadership of the PRD, led by Jesús Ortega, AMLO chose to dismiss the party, which appeared bent on keeping its word regarding who will be its presidential candidate in 2012 - AMLO earlier agreed that it would be whoever was ahead in the polls. As the PRD leadership recently reiterated this, rather than falling in line behind AMLO, he may finally leave it all together.
(PT and Convergencia, two utterly opportunistic parties devoid of any ideology or programmatic consistency,  also reiterated this promise, but I am hardly holding my breath here). 

I will certainly head to the Zócalo Sunday in any case to "gauge the mood..." 

Who will lead the PRD after Ortega?

It seems like only months ago that Jesús Ortega was finally granted the party presidency of the PRD, after a ruling by TEPJF, the electoral tribunal. The party election was amazingly held by mass vote by the party base, even though every single election through this mechanism has led to a disaster, and particularly since the party by 2008 was more bitterly divided than at any point in history. My heart sinks just thinking the thought that the next election might in the end be held by this manner again.

It is my opinion that the PRD´s disastrous electoral result in 2009 was hardly the fault of Ortega, but rather of the refusal of his internal party opponents to accept his leadership and instead continue their "friendly" fire, and of AMLO´s decision to turn his back on his old party and campaign for the PT and Convergencia in that year's federal mid-term election.

This article in El Universal gives a decent run-down of some of the frontrunners, yet I digress strongly with its warning against trying out the proposed new method of electing party president, namely by a 60% supermajority in the PRD's national council. First, given the many cochineros of internal elections in the past, isn't it worth trying? How many times shall one keep doing the same thing and expect a different result? As for the internal division in the PRD I believe it remains as strong as ever, and now a new fault line as well is adding to the others, namely whether to push for AMLO in 2012 or not. And so what if this means the corrientes will need to pact a majority agreement? Isn´t that exactly the point? The andresmanuelistas has again and again showed they are terribly poor losers that generally tend to refuse to accept losses, particularly within PRD's own institution. This might serve to keep them on, rather than a zero-sum pro-AMLO or a pro-Nueva Izquierda president. Moreover, a supermajority requirement would be (somewhat) akin to a version of parliamentarism, which many in the PRD has long advocated.

The post also mentions Dolores Padierna as a possible candidate. It is my opionion that if Padierna, wife of the infamous René Bejarano, gets control of the PRD, the party is truly doomed. No one has done more to sow internal party division and create bad blood than the people of the corriente IDN, which, to recycle an overused saying,is hardly of the left but socially conservative and stalinist (I for izquierda), certainly not internally democratic but lead with an iron hand by Bejarano/Padierna (D for democrática), and hardly national (N for nacional), as its main strength lies with the clientelistic networks maintained by Bejarano in Mexico City. Only Nueva Izquierda, of Ortega et al, has proven capable, or rather, bothered to build a national organization. Padierna yet again recently called for Ortega to step down, demonstrating yet again IDN's failure to accept its loss. 

One candidate that is not mentioned is Michoacán Governor Leonel Godoy. Every single perredista in the upper echelons of the PRD that I´ve talked to have been full of praise for Godoy´s 2003-2005 interim presidency of the PRD following the utter disastrous presidency of Rosario Robles. The contrast to his successor Leonel Cota, who was regarded as completely subservient  to AMLO, was also remarkable.
He could again be somewhat of a, for lack of better word, "unity" candidate.
Yo voy con Godoy. 

The gruesome face of rightwing catholicism: Guanajuato

Even after a rash of initiatives to criminalize abortion in a range of states the past couple of years, the case of Guanajuato, which is led by a far right wing of PAN where many belong to the extremist secret organization known as El Yunque, stands out in its infamany: Milenio reports that at least 160 women are currently being prosecuted for having suffered spontaneous abortions. Abortions in Guanajuato are punished by at least three years in prison and women "suspected" of having had an abortion are regularly harassed, physically and sexually,  by the police, having been "turned in" in many cases by their former boyfriends, doctors, or others. 

Meanwhile, Luz María Ramírez, head of the Guanajuato section of the ineffectual and politicized National Institute for Women, is more concerned with castigating women who show a lack of "moral values" by wearing tattoos.


Some great news: Alma Yareli Salazar Saldaña, who had been sentenced to 27.5 years in prison for spontaneous abortion - yes, 25 years - was just released in San Miguel de Allende. 
Hopefully, this case -' notorious for its fabrication of evidence - may lead to the release of many other women who are suffering the same fate. 

                          

Leftist sectarianism a la mexicana

Gerardo Fernández Noroña is at it again. The rambunctious former spokesman for the PRD, who bailed his old party when his favored candidate Alejandro Encinas failed to win the party presidency in 2008, is a living manifestation of the sectarianism of the Mexican left. Now a diputado for PT, Noroña appearently threatened to "expose" what he claims to be shady property deals by PRD Vice Coordinator Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, if the PRD supports a proposal for a general value-added tax.


(Acosta Naranjo, to recall, is a noted member of Nueva Izquierda, the faction that currently controls the PRD's national secretariat). 


Beyond the accusations itself, which I find highly dubious given Noroña's credetials, what happened to the calls for unity on the Mexican left?


La Jornada puts its usual pro-AMLO, pro-Encinas, anti-Nueva Izquierda spin on the issue.
Yes, value-added tax on its own is regressive taxation that hurts the poor more than the rich, but the point is exactly what the added revenue generated by the IVA is used for. If it is used for extensive social programs, the whole picture changes regarding whether IVA is truly a "tax on the poor." Don't expect Noroña to capture this anytime soon.

AMLO: “La mafia que se adueñó de México… y el 2012"

I finally got to read through AMLO's new book, La mafia que se adueñó de México… y el 2012.
It is neither excessively long nor a tough read - as all of AMLO's books it's highly accessible.
I also would recommend it for several reasons. The writing is passionate, with wonderful descriptions of his travels through Mexico - AMLO has visited every single one of Mexico's municipalities - every 2456 of them, - probably a first in Mexican history. His passion for Mexico is heartfelt. AMLO also visited every one of Oaxaxa's districts of uso y costumbre, and his stories from Oaxaca are particularly stirring in their compassion for Mexico's poor.

Yet in my opinion one may also see glimpses of a darker side of López Obrador. He resolutely defends his rather extreme behavior during the 2008 petroleum reform, where he called upon thousands of his followers to literally seek to block the petroleum form, through keeping legislators out of congress, because the reform did not include 12 (or 17) words that he demanded to be inserted. In the book, he rather amazingly claims that had it not been for this mobilization, the entire petroleum industry would have been privatized, which defies belief. There is more than an element of delusions of grandeur here.

Other observations:
- He goes remarkably soft on Carlos Slim, despite being the richest man in Mexico.
  (see Denise Dresser's excellent "Open Letter to Carlos Slim" in Proceso.)
- He says nothing of the highly reactionary Mexican Catholic Church, this caste of elites that for centuries has done so much to block social progress in Mexico

And the clincher: One chapter section is entitled, "Who will be the candidate?" where he repeats the deal made with Marcelo Ebrard that the PRD (and presumably PT and Convergencia) will rally behind whoever is ahead in voting intentions, be it AMLO or Ebrard.

Yet mere weeks after book's publication, in what appears a panicked response to his failed predictions of carro completo for the PRI on July 4, he completely contradicted himself by stating that, no matter what, he's "going for 2012."

While he appeared to backtrack days later, I remain personally convinced that there is a higher likelyhood that hell will freeze over rather than AMLO declining in favor of Ebrard - or any other candidate of the left.

PRD history lesson from Senator Graco Ramírez

Given the heavy criticism from both AMLO and CC of the PRD-PAN alliances, it is worth recalling, as does PRD Senator Graco Ramírez, that both PRD ex-presidents also advocated them in the past.

While the alliances were certainly controversial within both parties, members of the PRD corriente or party faction Nueva Izquierda rightly criticized the two caudillos for opposing the alliances while doing nothing to help the PRD in the states where the party ran alone. AMLO, for his part, only campaigned for Senator Dante Delgado in Veracruz, where the founder and former president of Convergencia - and, to be sure, former priísta governor of Veracruz - only finished third.

Both AMLO and CC appeared convinced the aliances would fail spectacularly. In the end, only their predictions did.