Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas seeks to place his son Lázaro as PRD president

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas will never, ever give up his presidential ambitions. Either he, or one of his sons, will be president of Mexico. While Cárdenas  is much more of a statesman than AMLO has ever been and likely ever will be, he has on a range of occasions displayed exactly the same stubborn me-or-the-highway approach. He has run 3 times for national president and was only blocked from doing so in 2006 as virtually the entire PRD pushed for him to decline. Yet rather than help AMLO win, he hardly lifted a finger in his native Michoacán for AMLO's candidacy, nor did his sons.

Now, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is eagerly jumping in the fray again - as if he ever really left - by backing the plans by the anti-Ortega crowd in the PRD to put his son, former governor (2004-2008) of Michoacán Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, as a new "unity" PRD leader between the pro-AMLO and the pro-Ortega groups, which constitute the most significant division in the party. Be sure that it is also part of the plan to present Lázaro Cárdenas Batel as a similar presidential candidate of unity in 2012, after Marcelo Ebrard and AMLO tear themselves and the party apart. Cárdenas met with the anti-Ortega group, nicknamed G8, and demanded the immediate resignation of Ortega, but refuses to state that he backs his son as the new party president. The old caudillo is fooling no one.

Former party president Leonel Cota renounces PRD to join the Green Party

 Leonel Cota's decision to abandon the party he as president to join the Mexican Green Party (PVEM), an extremely opportunistic electoral outfit devoid of any ideology or programmatic content, let alone care for the environment, is almost poetically logical. Cota, to recall, was a priísta until the late 1990s, but bailed PRI when the party failed to nominate him as its gubernatorial candidate for Baja California Sur. AMLO, then PRD president, encouraged Cota to join the PRD and run on its own label, which he successfully did. In 2005, with AMLO's presidential candidacy seemingly on tracks, he imposed Cota Montaño as PRD party president, a post he held until 2008. I have yet to meet any elite member of the PRD - either pro-AMLO or pro-Ortega, or anywhere in between, who had any good word to say about his leadership; he was universally regarded an absentee landlord, a caretaker president who took no initiatives on his own but followed any command of AMLO. He ended his presidency on a particular bad note, disgracing himself by directly interfering in the internal election to elect his successor, prematurely, and falsely, declaring Alejandro Encinas to be the winner. 


Now, Leonel Cota sought to be the PRD candidate for mayor of Los Cabos, but the PRD's Comisión Política Nacional, which represents all major party groups in somewhat of a council of elders, cancelled what was to have been a statewide poll to elect its candidates, due to disturbances and irregularities in the process. Cota, of course, huffed and puffed and accused the PRD of merely cancelling an internal election he was sure to win. He had earlier threatened to leave the party unless it made him its candidate, his decision to join the PVEM, a long-time enemy of the PRD and close ally of the PRI, is still more than bit shocking, yet given his opportunistic trajectory, ultimately congruent with his maxim: Your own interest first, always. 

Greatest joke of the day: Emilio González Márquez announces his presidential candidacy

Emilio González Márquez is decidedly one of the most unsavory and unpopular politicians within the Partido Acción Nacional. For many who were not familiar with Jalisco's governor, González Márquez leaped to international prominence when he appeared smashed - drunk, that is - at a banquet, and declared, to critics of his blatantly illegal act to hand over millions of pesos of taxpayer money to the ultra-reactionary Mexican Catholic Church, that they could "go fuck their mothers." To add, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez  was front row in the audience, and merely giggled to González Márquez' commentary. 


To recall, the governor's "gift" to the church caused quite a scandal, as it was revealed that he was in the process of handing out tens of millions pesos more for the church to build a sanctuary for catholics killed during the Cristero Rebellion. 

One would think this "Macrolimosna" scandal, as it became known, which caused widespread rejection among the populace, would have put a lid on the Jalisco governor's political ambitions, but think again: Emilio González Márquez just declared he is running for the presidency! 

Emilio, you certainly brightened up my day! Now let's see if you can stay sober for just one press conference...

(The famous drunk speech can be seen here)

Shame on Alejandro Encinas: A well-respected man adopts AMLO's reasoning on democracy

I've met and interviewed Alejandro Encinas, and I know well his trajectory in the PRD. The man has a past in the Mexican Communist Party (PCM), but has long been very far from a radical, ideological or otherwise. It is therefore really sad to see how his blind defense of AMLO has led to his adopting some of the same twisted logic on the value of democratic representation and institutions. Regarding the recent vote in the state of Mexico, where the PRD state council, elected in 2008 by mass vote, was just one short of a 2/3 majority in favor of allying with the PAN for 2011, until AMLO's supporters blocked the vote, Encinas has the following to say: 

"The size of the PRD is not measured by the size of its bureaucracy;  the bureaucracy does not necessarily represent the social base of the PRD, so that's why one shouldn't go for the illusion of the numbers."

This dangerous, irresponsible thinking should really be beneath Encinas. It is sad to read. Not only is this a pathetic attempt to preempt what may be a successful 2/3 vote when the state council reconvenes by already dismissing the vote outcome before it has taken place; it shows a profound disregard for accepting the results of democratic votes when they don't go your way. What Encinas calls "illusion" is a vote made by the PRD state council, which is elected by party base. In the worst of Stalinist fashion, it merely substitutes "the party is always right" for a "the party base is always right," allowing for the absurd implication that there is somehow a disconnect between the "real" party of the mass bases and the state PRD leadership, when the former duly elected the latter. 


But there is more: How far does this reasoning go? To hell with congress, to hell with the presidency, to hell with courts, to hell with democracy, because these are really just an "illusion" as opposed to the "people"? It is a very dangerous path to embark upon, especially coming from a man who is the PRD's parliamentary leader in congress. 

To what moral depths are Hugo Valdemar and the Mexican high clergy capable of sinking?

"Nothing's Shocking," was the title of Jane's Addiction's debut album, a reflection of its time.
I really thought I'd reached a similar level of resignation with the utterances of the high clergy of the Mexican catholic church, ever more outrageous, bigoted, homophobic, misogynist and hateful. Yet then there is Hugo Valdemar, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Mexico.


"Father" Valdemar now argues that PRD and Marcelo Ebrard - among the forces who have fought the most against discrimination of gays in Mexico - are actually guilty of homophobia. Yes, homophobia. By "irresponsibly promoting and approving the laws that endorse marriages of the same sex," Valdemar opines, PRD and Ebrard are provoking people who feel their marriage is under attack and hence, will take it out on gays. So, by promoting gay rights, PRD and Ebrard are guilty of homophobia. 


To assume for a moment Valdemar's thinking and put this horrendous logic, or the absolute lack of any, in perspective: Civil right defenders in the 1950s United States should not have promoted laws that allowed for civil rights for blacks, because this would only have provoked the white racists who burned crosses and murdered blacks. The real racists, then, were the civil rights campaigners. 


Is it really any wonder that the Mexican church is losing adherents,to alternative churches and the progressive forces of secularism, literally by the day?

Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo: "Either a single man decides or the collegiate organs decide"

Some PRD talkback after AMLO's increasingly aggressive attacks on the PRD: Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo responds to AMLO in an interview with Carlos Marin:

"Either a single man decides or the collegiate bodies decide, and I have always been a support of the idea that many heads, those of institutions, those of horizontal organizations, are better than illuminated men"

This is indeed the crux of the issue: Should the PRD follow a caudillo, or should it follow the institutional path of its own democratically elected organs. 

The interview is well watching in its entirety on youtube. 

Voices on the PRI's likely return to power

Many a personality has been commenting the past days on the likely return of the PRI to the Mexican presidency in 2012.  Fox, notably, seemed resigned to the idea that the PRI will win in 2012, declaring recently, "Right now, that's what dice are saying, the dice and the facts." As might be expected, Fox' predictions were hardly well received by the PAN; big shots such as party leader César Nava and PAN Senate group leader José González Morfín rejected the statements, and instead called on Fox to involve himself more in party politics rather than criticizing it from the outside. (After some heavy twittering, he now backtracked and said he "did not predict PRI's victory," but that it was to function as a warning call.

Be that it as it may, Manuel Bartlett, former PRI interior minister and governor of Puebla, somewhat estranged from his party and on good terms with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, affirmed that PRI would return thanks to the "disenchamtment PAN, but that the PRI lacks a national project and that its triumph would only be due to "mistakes and the disaster in which the PAN has occurred in the exercise of power." It is hardly a ringing endorsement of a PRI presidential candidate. Is Bartlett throwing his weight behind López Obrador?

Finally, Francisco Labastida Ochoa, defeated 2000 PRI presidential candidate, took offense at declarations made by writer Mario Vargas Llosa to the newspaper La Jornada, in connection with being bestowed an honorary degree by UNAM, where he noted that even if the PRI returns it would hardly have the absolute power of the past "perfect dictatorship," the felicitous phrase coined by the Peruvian writer to describe the 1929-2000 priiato. Labastida dixit:

"His [Vargas Lloosa's] political sympathies overtake him, his absolute conservative ideology of the right, and this prevents him from seeing that the party [PRI] has had many different governments. Lázaro Cárdenas belonged to the tricolor, as did Carlos Salinas the Gortari. PRI has not been uniform over the years. This is the first misunderstanding of this writer. The other is to claim that for 70 years one lived through a perfect dictatorship."

Really? If Labastida can come up with a better turn, I wish he'd share it. It is perhaps even more revealing that Labastida reaches all the way back to the 1930s to find a progressive PRI politician to contrast with Salinas. One would have liked to ask the senator, where would he place Peña Nieto - with the former or the latter? AMLO has the answer ready: As part of his "loyalty tour" (loyalty to him as opposed to the PRD), he gleefully exhibits a photo of an embracing Peña Nieto and Salinas. To AMLO, a victory of Peña Nieto and the return of PRI would be akin to "the return of Santa Anna."

Yet if that is the case, why is he so adamantly attacking the PAN-PRD alliances and claiming that PRI and PAN are all the same?

First PRD-PAN alliance confirmed: Nayarit 2011.

The PRD state council in Nayarit voted unanimously to go in an electoral alliance in 2011 when the small coastal state is voting for governor. While the PAN won't decide until October, it is pretty much a done deal; unlike the PRD, the final decision within the PAN will be taken centrally by the PAN's National Council, which clearly supports the PAN-PRD alliances to stop the return of PRI.


PRD national deputy Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo has been preparing his candidacy for quite a while, and appears an exceptionally strong candidate to replace PRI governor Ney González.. While he is a close ally of PRD national president Jesús Ortega and a central member of the Nueva Izquierda, the largest party faction in PRD, he has pretty much buena onda with even the lopezobradoristas, and this should augur well for a unified PRD in the upcoming elections. 


However, given that AMLO has hysterically declared the PRD-PAN alliances to be "treason," regardless of whether the PRD state councils express support for them or not, Acosta Naranjo may still be in for (not so) "friendly fire" from members of is own party. Will AMLO also seek to sabotage this candidacy, as he has proclaimed he will do in Mexico State? Is Acosta Naranjo, then, also a traitor?

AMLO's supporters physically blocks the PRD from reaching 2/3 majority in favor of alliances

Another farce. This is in the simplest terms what happened: Just as the PRD state council was inching toward an overwhelming majority vote in the PRD mexiquense or Mexico State party branch in a vote over whether to join in an alliance with the PAN,  AMLO's supporters decided to take the council directorate by force to stop the vote count when it was inching close to a whopping 2/3 majority in favor of the alliances. Ahain, AMLO's supporters, in Mexico State represented by the corrientes or party factions Izquierda Democrática Nacional (IDN), Grupo de Acción Política (GAP) and Unión de Izquierdas (Unir), demonstrated they have no intention of accepting the result of any vote they do not win. The andresmanuelistas resorted to direct action - physical force - when the vote reached 168-86, or just one vote short of a 2/3 majority.

As the votes were counted and it was clear that a majority of the PRD's state council favored an alliance with PAN in order to beat the PRI, AMLO's supporters protested and demanded the state council should rather vote with a 2/3 majority. While this has been standard practice in the national council, it is not stipulated that the state councils also have to vote with a 2/3 majority. Even so, the pro-alliance forces, above all the factions Nueva Izquierda (NI) and  Alianza Democrática Nacional (ADN), gathered a surprisingly high number of votes: the count had reached 168 in favor to 86 in against, or just one vote right short of a 2/3 majority. AMLO's supporters then proceeded to storm and "take" the speaker dais, effectively blocking the vote, and a fistfight ensued. The state leadership declared a 15 day recess.

(It's rather remarkable to read the same news event covered in La Jornada, which these days has absolutely no shame when it comes to twisting the facts in favor of AMLO; in their coverage, PRD "suspended the council after the corrientes ADN and NI didn't reach the necessary votes to approve the resolution that would permit the PRD to ally with PAN." It's a pity that La Jornada's activism has become of such a degree that it is increasingly useless as a news source to cover PRD and AMLO events.)

So the issue will unfortunately not be settled yet. AMLO continues to hurl accusations that the PRD has fallen under President Felipe Calderón's spell, and threatens to postulate his own candidate should the PRD and PAN run a common gubernatorial candidate. To recall: in 2005, AMLO campaigned incessantly for the PRD-candidate, a non-party businesswoman forced upon the party by AMLO, who moreover rode roughshod over the state PRD organization and instead preferred using his own paid Redes Ciudadanas, or paid canvassers directly loyal to him. Even when the state PRD backed the candidate, Yeidckol Polevnsky, she barely pulled 22% of the votes. Whether he truly believes that an "independent" candidate promoted by him would do better in 2011 is a moot question; he will go to any lengths to sabotage the official PRD as long as they do not blindly follows his will. In AMLO's words, should the state council approve the alliance, they will remain only with "shell":

"If the PRD leaders have not dignity, we are going to show them that those from below, the militants and sympathizers, we don't want a pact with the PAN."

To hell with any democratic votes within the party itself, to hell with respecting PRD's organs and institutional processes: AMLO will take his followers and go. And Enrique Peña Nieto will be smiling ever broader.

On the Mexican church's understanding of democracy: A free lesson to Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez

The Roman Catholic church has had a highly ambiguous attitude toward democracy. Historically, it fought tooth and nail against the expansion of the vote, be it to women or to other classes, and as is well known, largely backed the brutal dictatorships of the 1970s. There are notable exceptions - above all the valiant actions of priests and bishops inspired by liberation theology in Central America and elsewhere - but from the high clergy - from the Vatican down to cardinals and archbishops - the church's record as a defender of democracy is hardly stellar. The case of Mexico, to be sure, is no exception.

One would therefore expect the Roman Catholic church in Mexico to tread a tad warily when it comes to issues of democracy. Not so with Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez of Guadalajara. I remain personally convinced that this extreme reactionary falangist does not really want democracy, based on his many extremist declarations over the years. I'll leave that aside and for the sake of the benefit of doubt argue that the cardinal is frighteningly ignorant of what democracy really entails. The most recent case in point: Sandoval Íñiguez  calls the Mexico City government a "dictatorship." Why? Because of the laws the ALDF, or the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District, democratically elected since 1997, has made. Adamantly against the Mexico City laws that allows abortion up until the 12th week and moreover gay marriage and adoption, the cardinal think this is anti-democratic. Why? According to the Cardinal,
1) they are against "natural" law; 2) they damage or contradict the "holy scripture"; 3) they go against majority opinion.

Let's try to  ignore for a moment the stunning stupidity of the cardinal's first "arguments" and focus on this third point : Because the cardinal has in possession opinion polls that state that there is a majority against the law, the fact that the ALDF passed them make the Mexico City government a "dictatorship."

Cardinal, for your information, I take the liberty to pass on the following information, based on concepts taught in my introductory course on comparative politics. I think you ought to sit in on our classes.

1) The ALDF is Mexico City's legislature and consists of 66 elected deputies. This is called electoral representative democracy: These deputies are elected to represent the citizens of Mexico City. Marcelo Ebrard, Government Chief of Mexico City, did not appoint this legislature. You seem to mix up the two by calling the Mexico City government a dictatorship: ALDF is not appointed or controlled by Mayor Ebrard.
2) Ebrard was democratically elected in 2006 with around 47 percent of the vote, more than 20 percent above his closest opponent. Hence, he is hardly a dictator. Yet since you apparently meant that the ALDF is dictatorial, it is worth reminding you that ALDF, ever since 1997, is democratically elected by Mexico City voters. It is therefore not dictatorial, but democratic.
3) A majority of these 66 legislators voted to pass these laws. While a minority may strongly disagree, and while protection for minority rights is also a key quality of representative democracy, in the final instance democracy is about the rule of the majority. Hence, even if we may disagree with the outcome of the vote, the minority must also accept that it lost and respect the decisions made by majority rule in a legislature. You can, of course, take the cause to the Supreme Court and argue it is unconstituti... - never mind, you already know this, because you did complain to the Supreme Court, which did approve the laws, so you know this part already, and clearly will respect the Supreme Court decision, right? Moving on:
3) That an opinion poll that you have in your possesion shows a majority of Mexicans or Mexico City voters reject these changes, does not make the ALDF or the Mexico City Government a dictatorship. To reiterate, Mexico City is a representative democracy: Citizens elect deputies on their behalf, and sometimes they make laws that may be, at some given points in time, against the majority will of the "people" that you refer to. You seem to suggest that ALDF should rather function based on opinion polls. This is hardly a practical undertaking; for example, the majority will is quite fickle and changes many times, and it would be a little tough to have a vote on every law. Moreover, one can also argue that some basic human rights shouldn't necessarily be put out to vote - should we have asked the majority of voters in Mississippi in the 1960s, for instance, whether they though African Americans should have basic civil rights such as the right to vote? Yet to keep it simpler, for the sake of this argument: If these voters feel strongly about it, they can always elect new deputies down the road that will overturn these laws. This is called democracy: We have the right to hire and fire our legislators.

As I noted earlier, I am not entirely convinced you really do support democracy, given other statements you have made in the past. Yet for the benefit of the doubt, I will try to believe that it is rather the case that you simply don't understand it. I hope the above points can serve as a brief, hastily written introduction to representative democracy; the part of the Mexican church you represent seem sorely in need of such a lesson.

On AMLO's authoritarian side: Opposing him is "treason." PRD votes over alliances.

The state council of PRD mexiquense, or the local branch of PRD in Mexico State, are meeting today in Toluca to vote over the proposal to go in an alliance with the PAN for the upcoming gubernatorial election. 


National party president Jesús Ortega, who is a strong proponent of the alliances, has nonetheless promised to abide by the decision of the PRD state branches: The decision to go in an alliance or not is theirs to decide, and Ortega will democratically respect the decision. 


Not so with AMLO. Ahead of today's vote, he has ramped up his activism in Mexico state, deeming it a "treason" should PRD join the PRD with a common candidate, widely considered the only chance the party has to avoid a new PRI governor and thus Enrique Peña Nieto's presidential vicotry and the PRI's return to Los Pinos in 2012. A day after he forced the PT to openly reject an alliance, yesterday he confirmed he will not respect any decision by the official and elected PRD leadership, and openly threatened to present a third candidate and to call upon his followers within and outside the PRD to reject a common PRD-PAN candidate. And to top this off, AMLO is accusing the PRD of "treason" - for not abiding to his will. 


Over the years, AMLO's authoritarian streaks have emerged ever more clearer. He will respect absolutely no dissenting opinion within the PRD, and it is clear he regards the party principally as a tool whose mission is to pliantly back his 2012 presidential bid. Ortega, for his part, called AMLO's threats "inadmissible," and his further declarations clearly marks the contrast with Ortega's socialdemocratic - and democratic - wing of the PRD, and AMLO's highly personalistic - and ever more authoritarian - populist project: 

"To accuse those who think differently of beign traitors, to me is an excess that can not be admitted... that we have differences does not give the right to anyone to disqualify as a traitor those who simply disagree...the leaders of PRD in Mexico State will decide on the policy of alliances; that is the [party] statute, that is what the statute says and what the rules of the party are."

Yet AMLO has already decided that those who do not agree with him are indeed traitors. He is absolutely in his right to reject the alliances, and, as Ortega notes, so is the PRD state council, which today may well reject the alliances, but it is clear that AMLO will absolutely not abide by any majority will. As such, Ebrard should know by now that AMLO will never accept any poll or vote where he is not declared the winner and the left's candidate for 2012. 

Norway honors bishop Raúl Vera López with Rafto Prize

Norway, the most secular of nations, honored Mexican Bishop Raúl Vera López of Saltillo with the Rafto Prize, given annually to defenders of human rights and democracy. The Rafto Foundation for Human rights deems Vera López "an uncompromising critic of power abuse and a fearless defender of migrants, indigenous peoples, and other groups at risk in Mexican society." How very true. Bishop Vera López has stood up not only against the Federal government in defense of particularly Mexico's indigenous, but also against powerful conservative sectors in the Roman Catholic church who loathes his incessant social activism.

Note that Vera López is originally from Guanajuato, home to many of the most reactionary, bigoted, anti-democratic elements of the catholic church. To paraphrase a line once attributed to Trotsky - if only more of the Mexican clergy were like him, I'd be a catholic too.

Senate approves PRD initiative to create Secretary of Migration

The Mexican Senate took an important step yesterday when it in a floor vote approved to pass on to senate committees a PRD initiative to create a national Secretary of Migration, elevating the head of the National Migration Institute (INM) to federal rank. This is a hugely important step, as elevating the institute to a federal position would not only create much more visibility for the migrant issue, but hopefully allow for much more resources and coordination between federal, state, and municipal levels, and would directly bring in governors from migrant heavy state to sit in on its council. The initiative also contemplates much improved public attention to human and labor rights of migrants in Mexico, as well as to Mexicans abroad.

Meanwhile, in Chiapas, the PRD-led state Congress a few days ago went ahead on its own to create a  "Commission to Protect Human Rights of Migrants" (Comisión para la Protección de los Derechos Humanos de Migrantes) and to guarantee passing through Chiapas the right to shelter, as well as rights to using health services and hospitals, and the protection of law. It's a but a step, as it will be a long-term process to put these rights into practice, but it is  nonetheless a very significant one for migrants' rights

"To hell with this alliance!" AMLO twists PT's arm to back off from PAN-PRD alliance

AMLO has started yet another "tour" of Mexico State, entitled, according to various banners, the "Loyalty Tour," which is both a thinly disguised pre-campaign for the Mexican presidency, as well as more immediately a mechanism to drum up opposition among the PRD base against an alliance with the PAN to present a common candidate for governor of Mexico State in 2011. The label is quite fitting: What AMLO is doing is to call for his followers within and outside the PRD to show loyalty to him, rather than the actual party leadership - to follow the man and his "cause" rather than to abide by the decisions of PRD's official elected party organs. AMLO has in general ridden roughshod over the PRD's official leadership the past decade, and if anything his dismissal of the party and the rejection of its positions when they do not correspond to his own, has merely intensified, and in his speech yesterday, in a direct attack on the current PRD leadership declared it "better that they once and for all remove the mask and go and join the PAN."

Despite the fact that the misnamed "Workers Party" PT (Partido del Trabajo), an unconditional AMLO ally since 2006, earlier appeared quite positive to a mega alliance of PRD-PT-Convergencia with the PAN in order to beat the PRI, AMLO again gave PT and its leader Alberto Anaya Gutiérrez an ultimatum: Either you reject the alliances, or else. 


The PT, to recall, is far less principled than it may appear - the party almost went with PRI in 2006, and its ultra loyalty to AMLO can best be explained from the fact that his support allows it enough votes to keep its party registry. Hence, just like AMLO forced the PT to leave coalitions it had entered where the PAN participated in this summer's gubernatorial election, AMLO now forced the PT to take a public stand against participating in any anti-PRI alliance in Mexico State in 2011 should it include the PAN. 


AMLO, for his part, declared he will not campaign for the PRD at all in Mexico State should its leadership join an alliance with the PAN, the party "that stole the Presidency from us."
Expect him to to everything in his powers the coming weeks to continue sabotaging such an alliance, and to call upon his followers to do the same. 


Enrique Peña Nieto must be smiling from ear to ear. 

Where in the world is Julio César Godoy? The case, and the Michoacanazo, stinks to high heaven

Where in the world is Julio César Godoy Toscano? The half brother of Michoacán Governor Leonel Godoy Rangel has not been seen since June 28 2009, days before he was elected a national deputy from Michocán's First electoral district in the city of Lázaro Cárdenas, in Mexico's federal (midterm) elections.


Yet in a rather comic show of force, more than 200 police officers from the Federal Police (PF) and the Attorney General's Office (PGR) laid siege, of sorts, of San Lázaro, the Mexican Chamber of Deputies,  to prevent Godoy Toscano from being sworn in as a member of Congress, which he is rumoured to do in near future. The police are constitutionally prohibited from entering the building, yet are apparently keen on preventing the deputy-elect from swearing in an thus achieving a constitutional fuero, or procedural immunity from prosecution.  

The case stinks to high heaven, as does the now-infamous Michoacanazo from June 2009. To recall, Godoy Toscano, together with a range of other functionaries and politicians, was accused of links to organized crime, specifically La Familia Michoacana, and more than 30 state functionaries, municipal presidents, and police were arrested in a military operation ordered by federal authorities that caught governor Godoy completely by surprise and of which he was not informed.

The problem: The evidence against most of the apprehended, as well against the fugitive Godoy Toscano, was very flimsy, to put it mildly. One by one the arrested have been released and charges dropped. Almost all the functionaries have been let go, as have 11 out of 12 arrested mayors, and governor Godoy let it be known that shortly Miguel García Hurtado, who was notably his state attorney general/prosecutor and the top man to be accused of aiding La Familia, will be released as well 

Yet back to Godoy Toscano. On Monday, a Michoacán judge granted him the restoration of his full political rights, meaning that the governor's brother may now technically be sworn in as a national deputy. However, one arrest warrant for the alleged ties to organized crime in Michoacán is still valid, so the PGR/PF therefore is attempting to snatch Godoy Toscano before this swearing in. 

Governor Godoy, argued "there is a persecution, there is an unusual harasssment" of Godoy Toscanao. It is, to be sure, quite noteworthy that the accused has sought and successfully obtained, on three occasions, an amparo, or injunction, against being apprehended, yet for every stay a new arrest warrant has been issued by different judges. So far, one was issued in Nayarit, two in Tamaulipas, and a one Jalisco.

PRD considers it a political plot;  PRD president Jesús Ortega denounced the now fourth (and counting) order of apprehension a "a persecution that has no legal reasons and only political-electoral motives," calling for Attorney General-Federal Prosecutor Arturo Chávez Chávez to step down. The case is murky. If Godoy Toscano is sworn in, the public may indeed perceive this quite negatively as a possible move simply to obtain legal immunity. Yet at the same time, while it would be a terrible scenario if Godoy Toscanao and the 30-odd other functionaries and politicians were guilty yet are freed due to police incompetence, it is a far more serious scenario if, as both Ortega and governor Godoy has suggested, this is indeed a political persecution, ahead of upcoming elections in Michoacán, where Felipe Calderón's sister is a veyr likely PAN candidate. Hopefully, time will tell. In the meantime, Godoy Toscano should follow his brother's advice to turn himself in. 

AMLO backs Horacio Duarte for Mexico State, rejects alliance with PAN with a new argument

Milenio reports that AMLO will be accompanied by Horacio Duarte when PRD's former presidential candidate this week will start another tour of each of Mexico's 125 municipalities. It's a strong indication that AMLO has decided on his chosen one to be PRD's candidate for governor (what will he do with Encinas - Mexico City again?). Duarte clearly has a party base in the PRD as part of his GAP group in Mexico State,  centered around Texcoco. Yet the problem is that Duarte failed to even get elected as federal deputy representing the district in last year's federal elections. He seems a far less weaker candidate than other PRD cadres such as current PRD Senator Héctor Bautista.

Regardless, AMLO, just like Enrique Peña Nieto, is continuing his offensive against any PRD-PAN coalition behind a common gubernatorial candidate, which to most observers appear the only chance to block Peña Nieto from installing an anointed successor when he steps down next year. AMLO's logic is increasingly tortured: While acknowledging the crucial importance of beating Peña Nieto, he announced that he opposes the alliances because he suspects that President Calderón will betray the PRD and in the end back Peña Nieto. That is, Mexico's national president, who is today more or less in trench warfare with the PRI and is desperate not to be the president who handed power back to PRI, is likely to double cross the PRD, so therefore the PRD should not join with the PAN...

If someone can explain the logic of AMLO's thinking, I would be most grateful.

Peña Nieto's Law steamrolls through Mexico State; PRI breaks another agreement

Governor Peña Nieto claimed that PRI already had the endorsement of 92 out of Mexico State's 125 municipalities for what has been dubbed "Peña Nieto's Law," given that it blatantly favors the governors presidential ambitions. This is more than the 66 required, though reports of irregularities in this signing process abound: Luis Sánchez Jiménez, leader of the PRD branch in the state, relates that rather than being treated in the local town halls, has simply been signed by the town council leader; in one egregious case, in the PRD-run Valle del Bravo, functionaries of the government showed up at 6 in the morning at the house of the regidora, demanding that she sign some important document regarding gender equality. Only later did she discover she had just endorsed, on behalf of the Valle del Bravo town council, Peña Nieto's Law.

Peña Nieto even has the audacity to claim the electoral alliances, which his law goes a long way to impede, make out a "open fraud" to the electorate. Did he simply forget that his candidacy was a product of such an alliance (PRI-PVEM) in 2005, and that PRI and its allies controls the majority of Mexico State's municipalities due to exactly the same type of alliances?

PRD confirms that as soon as the law is promulgated, it will take it to the Supreme Court. I am glad that finally political scientists, such as Alberto Aziz Nassif in today's El Universal, are finally making themselves heard regarding the blatant opportunism and authoritarianism inherent to steamrolling these laws through in the last moment, for the sole purpose of pushing Peña Nieto's candidacy. As Aziz Nassif notes,

"The logic of adapting the electoral system to the convenience of one of the actors at the expense of the others, is quite simply an authoritarian regression."

Well put. Should there be any remaining doubts, here is PRI's latest move: While it made an explicit agreement with PAN and PRD to share the presidency of the Mexico State Congress - the presidency is a rotating office - it backtracked and reelected by simple majority PRI deputy Ernesto Nemer Álvarez as president.

Peña Nieto and his backers like to present themselves as the "new PRI," as opposed to the old prinosaurios of the past, who governed Mexico since its Revolution. If anything, Peña Nieto has demonstrated that the "new PRI" is if anything even more authoritarian minded than PRI has been for years.

Mexico State/Estado de México: "Government that accomplishes"?

One of the main slogan of Governor Enrique Peña's government of Edomex or Mexico State is Gobierno que cumple, or a government that accomplishes. Yet what exactly is Peña Nieto accomplishing? One may recall that the governor in 2005 loudly presented a list of 600 "goals" his government was to complete by the end of his term, goals whose process of accomplishment have been duly noted at regular intervals.

Yet as local PAN deputy Mónica Fragoso pointed out in her party's response to Peña Nieto's recent informe or constituionally mandated report to the Mexican State congress,  the 503 goals the governor boasts of having achieved only make out a fraction of the total state budget - 9 billion 418 million pesos out of 53 billion 857 million, or only 2 percent of the total state budget the past five years. The question remains: What else is Peña Nieto spending money on?


(Jenaro Villamil reported last week in Proceso that Peña Nieto's government may also be spending far more money than the local congress has allowed and budgeted for).

Now, notably, the Mexican NGO Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad, a non-partisan organization dedicated to examining issues of economic competitiviness and transparency of Mexico's 32 entities (31 states and 1 Federal District), has issued a report entitled "The Black Box of Public Spending. (Direct link here). I have yet to study its findings in details, but with regards to Peña Nieto's spending, one factor immediately stands out: Mexico State is the second worst state in Mexico with regards to the lack of transparency in the management of its finances: It is only beat by a state led Peña Nieto's colleague and close ally within PRI, Ulises Ruis, of the state of Oaxaca.

Again: On what is Peña Nieto spending Mexico State's funds? 

Rosa Albina Garavito: An academic calls for the dissolution of the PRD

A comment on Rosa Albina Garavito Elías. The UAM Azcapotzalco academic is out with a new book, essentially a collection of newspaper opinion articles and other commentaries, entitled "Apuntes para el camino: Memorias sobre el PRD." In last week's Proceso (excerpt-subscription required) she repeats her favorite theme: The PRD is an empty shell, a carcass, with no future. The only reasonable path for the PRD, she says, is to call for a new constituent assembly and create a new party.

There are many things to comment on here, but I'll limit myself to a few observations.

A former PRD senator, Garavito Elías loudly resigned from the PRD in April 2008, following the PRD's disastrous internal election. Notably, Garavito Elías was the running mate of Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar, who was a candidate for the PRD presidency.While Ramírez Cuéllar - founding leader of the debtor organization El Barzón, who gained further fame when he entered the national congress on horseback - has so far opted to stay in the PRD, Garavito Elías left the party. Reading her memoirs (of sorts), she strikes me as an example that academics do not always make for the best party cadres, nor do they perhaps fully understand the nature of party politics. More than a tad arrogantly, she "returned" to the PRD in 2008 to run for the party leadership with Ramírez Cuellar (she had done nothing of note in the party since stepping down as PRD national senator in 2000) deeming their candidacy a "last opportunity" for the party to, well, redeem itself. Dismissing the notion that PRDs' internal battles can be traced to the overlapping and significant cleavages between two poles - party builders and movement advocates - she and Ramírez Cuéllar gave the party one last chance to rally behind their unity project.

The problem: the PRD members weren't listening. The Ramírez Cuéllar/Garavito Elías list pulled only around 18,000 votes, or a little over 1.5 percent of the vote total of the election, which was by the PRD mass base membership. Garavito then renounced the PRD, as the aftermath of the election turned really ugly, as both sides claimed victory, and with the outcome only settled in court. It is therefore quite amazing to learn that her running mate Ramírez Cuéllar as recently as yesterday called for a similar type of election to elect its new leader, but that is another story. The point here: Given the outcome of the election, the PRD bases apparently didn't buy her message. Garavito, however, renounced the PRD, declaring it beyond redemption: While she gave it one chance to come to its senses and elect Ramírez Cuéllar and her as party president and secretary general respetively, the party didn't know its own good. So, rather than fare thee well PRD and to each his own, she know calls for the party's dissolution.

Back to the book: I thought it would be worthwhile to read her reflections, but I cannot say there is much to applaud here, as the book presents a radical academic who would rather remain "pure" in her bubbly world, rather than to work for pragmatic solutions in the physical present. For example, in 1995, the PRD took a vast step forward by renouncing the idea of a total break with the regime - a government of "national salvation" is how Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas put it - and rather work in favor of a negotiated transition with the PRI government. That is, renounce the radical, immature, and dangerous ideas of a dramatic system change or regime overthrowal, to rather focus on reforming the country's institutions. These "radicals," to which Garavito belong, refused to even talk with the national government or have any relations at all with Ernesto Zedillo. Thankfully, for the party as well as for Mexico, cooler heads prevailed: Garavito was on the wrong side of history. Yet if you're looking for any acknowledgment of this in her book, keep looking.

And as for 2006? Well, that was a fraud, end of story. I wish I could see her evidence for it rather than merely take her word. If she knows something we don't, please do let us know.

Fast forward to 2009, when Garavito and other discontents called for spoiling the vote in the 2009 elections, in order to "send a signal" of sorts to the other parties. Thankfully, Mexicans have far more respect for the vote than that and the long battle it took them to have real party options, and the blank/spoiled vote only rose from around 2 to 5%. In my opinion, she - and others with her - was again on the wrong side of history. Yet in her book she revindicates this act as an important strike for democracy, against the supposed "partyocracy" choking Mexico.

Her book has received much favorable coverage and Garavito often appears as an "expert" commentator, receiving nods of approval from many an interviewer who buys her critiques of the PRD (and other parties) hook, line, and sinker. Yet I have yet to hear any critical question poised that would address her fundamental irresponsibility, both as a party cadre and an academic, last week's Proceso interview no exception.

Even with a 25% discount, Garavito's book is not worth the 262.5 pesos I paid for it. Nor is it worth the time to listen to her calls to dissolve the party, which failed to redeem itself by electing her secretary general. In the case of Garavito, PRD cadres would do well to reject both the medium and the message.

Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar calls for mass elections for PRD. When will they ever learn?

It sounds all wonderful and democratic: To elect a party leader, why not open it up to all citizens, not just PRD members, in a completely open mass election? This is exactly what Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar is proposing should be the manner in which PRD elects its new leader. Yet given the history of PRD's internal elections by party base, which without one single exception has been a dirty cohchinero and led to destructive infighting, chaos, even violence - and we're here only talking of PRD members, not a completely open election to all, party cadres and non-members alike - why on earth would Ramírez Cuéllar expect the next election to be any different? How many times do you keep doing the same thing and expect a different result? It's simply stunning to hear such a proposal, as it is still less than two years since PRD ended its last internal leadership feud, when the Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) ruled that Jesús Ortega had won the PRD presidency. The fight had been going on for 8 - eighth! - months, yet now Ramírez Cuéllar is arguing the party should do the same thing, even upping the ante by allowing non-party members to participate?

The initiative if nothing else demonstrate that Ramírez Cuéllar has come down on AMLO's side: PRD's former presidential candidate would clearly be able to use the movement around his Legitimate Government as muscle to vote in the election and elect a more pliant leader than Ortega is. To recall, this is exactly what Alejandro Encinas, who was AMLO's candidate but lost to Ortega in 2008, wanted at that time.

When it comes to leadership elections, PAN (Partido Acción Nacional) gets it: Let the National Council, which is elected directly by members, have a vote on who is to be the next party president.

 If PRD is serious about avoiding debilitating internal feuds, and if its factions really are willing to submit to a democratic majority, namely the National Council elected by the PRD base, the PRD should discard the mass-base election fetishism of Ramírez Cuéllar and others, and go for a similar mechanism when choosing its next party presiddent.

Mexico State may hide ticking budget bomb

While clearly Enrique Peña has very tangible electoral benefits to gain from handing over Mexico State to a PRI successor, there might be other motives lurking as well: According to an investigation by Jenaro Villamil in last week's Proceso, there is a 10 billion peso discrepancy between what what the Mexico State Congress has approved as the state's budget, and what Peña Nieto's government has spent.


(Villamil has written extensively on Peña Nieto both in Proceso's pages and outside, such as his 2009 book A subscription is required to access the full article, but he also has a most interesting blog, where a version of it can be accessed).

Basically, using the state's transparency laws to gain access to information (quite ironic, one should add), Villamil finds huge differences between what the State congress allocated for spending for 2010, and what the government's own secretariats report as being spent, in some places up to a seven-fold overspending. 


I've yet to see any reaction or comments from the Mexico State government on these claims, which are most serious: If we are to take this story at its word, it may appear that Peña Nieto has seriously cranked up on spending that has not been approved by the legislature, and for which there may simply be enough funds. And we're not talking small change here: 10 billion pesos equals a possible budget shortfall of close to 800 million dollars. 

PRI and PAN demand full cleanup of the National Institute of Migration (INM)

In a great - and rare these days - display of bipartisanship, key PAN and PRI legislators such as Norma Leticia Salazar (PAN) and Miguel Ernesto Pompa Corella (PRI) called for a thorough cleanup and restructuring of the Instituto Nacional de Migración, the National Institute of Migration (INM), following the firing of its leader, widely regarded as inept, Cecilia Romero. This is important.

Pompa:

"We must ensure that those who come to the institute not only knows the subject, but have they have the will to apply the relevant law, are disposed to be held accountable, end the opaqueness, and rein in those who work in migration. I am from the border, and we see how they provide no protection to our countrymen and far from protecting them, they themselves extort them, so for this we will be keenly watching"

PRI Senator Carlos Jiménez Macía declared that Romero's leadership the past four years 
was "the darkest era in the migratory history of the country," given the increase in harassment, abductions, and outright murder of immigrants, above all central Americans since Romero took power in December 2006.  


PAN deputy Salazar Vázquez also emphasized a need to amend the penal code to ensure that those collaborating in the trafficking of migrants - Mexican, Central Americans, or otherwise - will be duly punished. Let's hope so. Clearly, however, the crimes of the INM go beyond a single leader, or even a handful of bad apples: Serious institutional restructuring is in order for trust to ever be gained in the INM. 

PRI holds its last Political Council with Beatriz Paredes as party president

While hurricane Karl might affect attendance, PRI is holding its its Political Council this weekend. The entire top PRI leadership, with the notable exception of  Enrique Peña Nieto and Manlio Fabio Beltrones, its two top candidates for PRI 2012, have reported they will attend the Council deliberations, which will swear in a few new council members, debate the party's strategy toward 2012, as well as notably try to decide how to elect its new party leader after Beatriz Paredes Rangel. Quite unusually, Humberto Moreira, PRI governor of Coahuila, has already and most publicly stated his desire to be PRI's next president, warning that the next party leader  should not be anyone who merely wants to use the office it as a trampoline to become the PRI's presidential candidate in 2012. This is a thinly veiled reference to Roberto Madrazo, the infamous Tabascan who did exactly that in 2005-6, but also a possible warning to Beatriz Paredes as well, who has not ruled out a presidential bid, as well as possibly extending her mandate as PRI president. Notably, Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín, who will preside the Chamber of Deputies the next period, is considered to be her man, in the figurative sense. 


Humberto Moreira Valdés is scheduled to end his sexenio as governor of Coahila in Dec. 2011, and he would thus cut short his term by a year should be be the new PRI leader.  Moreira might also be referring to his possible opponent Ismael Hernández Deras, who will shortly step down as governor of Durango, but as many PRI watchers have not ruled out as a possible contender for 2012, given his seeming popularity within and outside of Durango.


Other possible PRI presidency candidates are Francisco Rojas Gutiérrez, leader of PRI's parliamentary group, and Emilio Gamboa, newly elected leader of PRI's CNOP (Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares), traditionally its "popular" or middle-class organization. Gamboa though is on bad terms with Paredes.


Humberto Moreira is on notably good terms with "the unnamable" (to borrow from AMLO's vocabulary) Carlos Salinas, and should Humberto Moreira manage to position himself well as PRI leader, he will likely work for the candidacy of Enrique Peña Nieto. Look for any hints of papal white smoke this weekend.

The Green Party lies through its teeth; Octavio Germán Olivares: Peña Nieto's Law to Supreme Court

Octavio Germán Olivares, leader of PAN in Mexico State, announced that as soon as what has been dubbed by many actors as "Peña Nieto's Law" (the recent initiative to block alliances in Mexico State and to cut short the time allowed for campaigning, both explicitly favoring the current governor) is published in the Gaceta General de Gobierno and thus made state law, PAN will take the legislation to the Mexican Supreme Court. So will Convergencia - quite ironically, though, as its Mexico State delegation is in the hands of Peña Nieto and backed the law.

The rush with which the PRI machinery has been pushing and passing this law is simply stunning. The law was introduced into congress by PVEM deputy Adrián Fuente, rushed through commissions, and then voted on the floor, all within days. Now, mere hours after having been approved, the legislation was sent out to Mexico State's 125 municipalities, 63 of which need to approve it, which will not be a problem given that PRI-PVEM who ran together in alliance just last year, as well as with a few other allied minor parties, control 97 of them. Expect them to be rushed back well in time for Oct. 5, which is the absolute deadline for ratifying them.
Given the paralysis and delay of reforms that pervades in many legislatures, this level of "fast-track," as La Jornada deems it, is simply stunning.

Peña Nieto, for his part, though he has sheepishly denied having anything to do with the legislation, stated that he backs the reform as the electorate is "confused" by political alliances.

Yet the price for cynicism  - or, outright stupidity - goes to Arturo Escobar, PVEM's national secretary of electoral affairs, no less, who denies that the PVEM is running Peña Nieto's errand by falsely arguing that the Mexico State electoral law will now simply be harmonized with federal law. This is quite a riot: Federal electoral law just went the opposite direction: Following the 2007 Electoral Reform, parties can still run in a coalition but will now have to run on their own weight and own label rather than just on a common coalition label. For instance, while PRD negotiated in advance with PT and Convergencia on the numbers of legislators these parities would receive in return for running on a common platform with the PRD behind the 2006 candidacy of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, they will, on the federal level, now have to run on separate legislative lists, carrying their own weight. The PVEM is thus shockingly unfamiliar with Mexican electoral law, or, worse and more plausible still, simply lies through its teeth, hoping not to get caught.

And the kicker: Guess what party voted against the 2007 Federal Electoral Reform? Yes... The Green Party!

Recommended read on Oaxaca "neo-patrimonialism"

I just wanted to draw attention to an excellent analysis on Oaxacan politics and the concept of "neo-patrimonialism by Julian Durazo-Herrmann, of Université du Québec à Montréal."Neo-Patrimonialism and Subnational Authoritarianism in Mexico. The Case of Oaxaca" offers a wonderfully succinct and well-written (a rarity in academic works) summary and analysis of recent political history in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, and the author applies and further develops the concept of "neo-patrimonialism" as an analyical tool to explain Oaxaca's trajectory. 

Despite Mexico's 2000 transition on the national level, authoritarianism remained, and even deepened, in several of Mexico's states.  Durazo-Herrmann argues, 

"In many cases, however, neo-patrimonial elites can adjust, adopting formally democratic reforms while continuing to pursue authoritarian practices, at least over some aspects of the subnational political system (Gervasoni 2010 in this issue). This long and ambiguous process of political adaptation and restructuring is known as hybridization and allows for – and serves to legitimize – the coexistence of formally democratic political institutions with authoritarian practices." (p. 88)

While Oaxaca's distinct social make-up has provided fertile breeding ground for neo-patrimonialism, the concept should be applicable to several more of particularly Mexico's southern states, though Oaxaca may represent the textbook case. While its "neo-patrimonial domination system" remained up until the present, the 2010 victory of Gabino Cué may well signal the beginning of the end - or the end of the beginning of the end - of this authoritarian practice. 


The paper is published in the new excellent journal Journal of Politics in Latin America, which is, unlike most high-quality academic journals available entirely for free. It is well worth your time. 

"The only difference I see between Diaz Ordaz and Enrique Peña is that Diaz Ordaz was ugly."

Jorge Insunza, a PAN local deputy in the Mexico State congress, made the quote of the day: "The only difference I see between Diaz Ordaz and Enrique Peña is that Diaz Ordaz was ugly."


Insunza Armas compared Mexico State governor Enrique Peña unfavorably to Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, the authoritarian PRI president with an inferiority and insecurity complex (1964-70) from Puebla who ordered the gunning down of hundreds of demonstrators in Tlatelolco in 1968. 


Beyond the exaggerated comparison, it appears that Peña Nieto will stop at nothing from reaching the presidency. In a day of infamy in the Mexico State legislature, what has now been baptized "Peña Nieto's Law,"  explicitly aimed at stopping a PAN-PRD common candidate, passed by a 52-21 margin -  PRI, PVEM, PANAL, PSD, and Convergencia against the votes of PRD, PAN and PT. 

PRD legislators Oscar Sánchez Juárez and Ricardo Moreno Bastida stood guard at a coffin that contained Mexico's electoral law, and the PRD had brought mariachis who entoned Las Golondrina, all symbolizing the death of democracy in Mexico State. Moreno dixit: 

"We are having a wake for the remains of democracy in a small coffin, because this democracy was very young, and still it was murdered by Governor Enrique Peña, for the fear it caused him"

That is also an exaggeration, but the blatant institutional engineering - changing the electoral code opportunistically exclusively to block a common opposition candidate, as well as to reduce the time allowed for campaigns, which blatantly favors Peña Nieto's media-promoted and -created candidacy - is an exercise in blatant institutional engineering, and an ominous omen for his possible presidency. 

Marcelo Ebrard, who has maintained a relatively cordial relationship with his peer in Mexico State, called the initiative a "typical PRI abuse":

"What matters is that they know they might lose the state of Mexico. There has never been an alternation [of power] in the state of Mexico and sure this year we will see, for the first time in history, a change of party"

The law will now need to be ratified by a majority of the municipalities, which will not be a problem due to the PRI's dominance of Mexico State politics. Last year, to recall, PRI and the Green Party (PVEM) in alliance won about 4/5 of the state's municipalities (97 out of 125, to be exact), due to the very mechanism of a common candidate. This is the first electoral "reform" in 15 years that is pushed through in a majoritarian manner, without any input from opposition parties.


PRD and PAN may, however, take the matters to the Mexican Supreme Court. Regardless, all gloves are now off, if they were ever on.

Cecilia Romero forced out of National Institute for Migration

While she has fought tooth and nail at several times the past years to retain her position as head of the National Institute for Migration (Instituto Nacional de Migración, INM), Cecilia Romero was finally fired from the INM. The PRD in particular had kept up pressure on Romero following the most recent massacre of immigrants in Tamaulipas, deeming here "politically responsible" for the massacre, and senators altered the past weeks between demanding that she appear to explain the INM's failure to adequately protect migrants, and outright calling for her resignation. Romero adamantly refused to make any appearance in the Senate, which as recently as yesterday again called for her to report on the INM's work, or to step down.

As an indidation of how vehemntly Romero had fought her dismissal, the INM for hours couldn't even make itself present an official story for exactly why Romero was leaving.  Her work has been criticized by the National Human Rights Commission (Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, CNDH) as well as internatioanl observers such as Amnesty International. As recently as May, she brushed off criticism by the CNDH on the massive increased in abuses and kidnappings as mere "suggestions, not recommendations."

I find it ironic that while she survived three interior ministers, the apparent docile Francisco Blake Mora would be her bane.

Jesús Ortega: PRD and the "two poles"

PRD national president Jésus Ortega, while denying not-too-convincingly that the PRD remains a divided party, recently outlined what he regard to be the key internal fault line of the party. According to El Universal,

"The PRD leader said that almost from its inception there have been two poles within its ranks: one that seeks to be of the center-left and brings together different sectors, including business sectors, to build something similar to that achieved by Brazil's President Lula da Silva and the Broad Front in Uruguay.  There is another, he emphasized, which is polarizing, extremist, and with anarchist traits. He described as absurd the statements from PRD members that accusing of being a servant of the PAN and the President."

The argument that the division within the PRD is chiefly between its movement and party advocates, and that the division between these two poles runs to the chore of PRD's history,  current identity and, crucially, its most brutal internal  battles, is the topic of a recent political science dissertation. 

PAN going it alone in Guerrero: Marcos Efrén Parra candidate for governor

The PAN's National Executive Committee announced that PAN will not joint PRI in an electoral alliance for the gubernatorial elections in Guerrero in 2011. CEN president César Nava argued that the case of Guerrero was different from other states: In Oaxaca, Puebla, and Sinaloa, the PAN-PRD alliances were successful in kicking out the PRI for the first time in history. Guerrero, however, is today nominally run by the PRD, having won with Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo in 2005. The argument is a valid one, if the main purpose of the alliances were merely to achieve alternation, and as such the CEN is likely to continue pushing for a PAN-PRD alliance in Mexico State, which has always been governed by the PRI. Yet it is no secret that the PRD-PT-Convergencia coalition behind Ángel Aguirre Rivero had also hoped to enlist PAN, a party that in any case has little presence in Guerrero. It's local party branch, for instance, argued in favor of joining the PRD-led coalition behind Aguirre rather than to put forth a testimonial candidate with minuscule chances of winning

Marcos Efrén Parra Gómez is a former PAN mayor of silver town Taxco.

Peña Nieto's frontal assault on democracy: Legislation fast-tracks through Mexico State Congress

The initiative by the Green Party (PVEM) to impede the formation of electoral alliances in the upcoming gubernatorial elections in Mexico State, breezed through the local legislature in Mexico State after a cursory hearing with such a speed that designating it a "fast-track" hardly does it justice.  


What it does:
* While the legislation does pretend to block alliances, it will still allow common candidates, in the sense that PAN and PRD can still present a common one for 2011. However, should this legislation pass the full floor vote, they now basically have to register as one electoral party-coalition, rather than four separate parties  (PAN, PRD-PT-Convergencia) with separate lists for deputies and municipal presidents, as well as, crucially, separate funding. They will only have one common representative at the state electoral institute, which arranges the election and addresses irregularities, as well as only one representative at the ballot box. They will, in essence, operate in a "reverse gestalt," for lack of better word, where the total sum of the four parties will be considerably less than their component four parts. 


--> Note here that on the national level, the 2007 Electoral Reform went the opposite direction: While e.g. PT and Convergencia extracted a huge number of "safe seats" from the PRD as a price for going into a full coalition (all votes went to the coalition, not the individual parties) in 2006, this was changed at the federal level as the smaller parties now will have to carry their own weight - they have to present their own legislative/municipal lists rather than negotiating safe seats and "vote transfers" in advance. 


* In addition, however, the legislation also aims at greatly reducing the campaign time from 72 and 60 days for governor and deputies/municipal presidents, respectively, to 45 and 30. Clearly this is directly going to favor the party that already is receiving near total permanent coverage in the media, PRI and its candidate Enrique Peña Nieto. 


* Other measures to reduce party spending as well as methods to designate party representatives at the ballot stations, both intended to favor the sitting PRI. More here later. 


PRI and PVEM voted in commitee to bring the proposed legislation up to a floor vote, and was backed in this by none other than Convergencia, a quintessentially opportunist party that rivals the PVEM in frequency of turnings its cape to the wind (the same party is, to recall, on the national level an ardent backer of Andrés Manuel López Obrador), as well as PANAL and the Partido Social Demócrata (PSD) (the latter is now-defunct on the national level, and its representative in Mexico State is a PRI member in all but name). 


Peña Nieto, in his usual slick doublespeak, claimed he and the PRI were not against alliances at all:

 "What the PRI want is rather to promote a legal framework that permits transparent political competition, and that doesn't create confusion."

Beyond such niceties, this initative is far from aimed at ending confusion, but directly to seek to block a common PRD-PAN candidate in 2011, as well as other measures intended to directly favor the PRI candidate.

Now PRI/PVEM and its backers claims that such amalgams represent a more clear option than common candidacies, where parties run on their own separate labels and lists yet combine to put forth e.g. a common gubernatorial candidate.  The argument does not hold water even in a cursory reading.

PRI/PVEM are using the case of Guanajuato as a precedent; there, the local congress voted to ban common candidacies, which was appealed unsuccesfully to the Supreme Court. Yet the comparison is a spurious one, for a range of reasons, most importantly as it didn't apply to gubernatorial candidates, but municipal-level offices.

Luis Sánchez Jiménez, leader of the Mexico State branch of PRD and one of the most capable of PRD's cadres, deemed Peña Nieto "a danger to democracy and to the country." It is certainly a clear demonstration of the lengths of institutional engineering to which Peña Nieta is willing to go to reach the Mexican presidency.  PRD president Jesús Ortega gets the final word:

"Peña Nieto is on several fronts doing everything possible to prevent the alliance. He knows the risk of a democratic union that can beat him and the PRI in elections in the State of Mexico, and this will be a mortal blow, not only toward his pretensions to be President of the Republic, but a mortal blow to the person who appears today as the candidate of the oligarchy."