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.
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