Enrique Peña Nieto's report to the Mexico State Congress: A freudian moment

Mexico is not only facing the threat of narcos:

"There is another serious threat: the struggle of power for the sake of power, which promotes ademocracy without content, and for the sole purpose of gaining power projects are negotiated between antagonistic alliances, which generate confusion and distrust in politics."

The words well be used to describe the alliances Enrique Peña Nieto has tied with the Mexican Church, which despite the PRI's historic role as a defender of the secular state has become a key ally in promoting Peña Nieto's presidential candidacy, as well as with a range of business interests of more or less shady character linked to former president Carlos Salinas. But no: the words were uttered by Peña Nieto himself, as he used the occasion of his fifth informe or report to the Mexico State congress to launch a full frontal attack on the PRI-PAN alliances. Peña Nieto knows well that should a PAN-PRD materialize for Mexico State in 2011, and should it win and thereby block Peña Nieto from leaving the state in the hands of an anointed successor, his chances for winning the presidency in 2012 would have received a brutal blow. Peña Nieto continued:

"Crime is not the only risk facing the country. Another serious threat to Mexicans is the lack of congruency in the negotiation of alliances between antagonistic visions, and this fight only leads to authoritarianism and reduced people's options and undermines the spirit of democracy."

To be able to state such nonsense with a straight face requires a good actor and Peña Nieto apparently has received some good acting lessons recently from his telenovela girlfriend. Yet to claim that the PRD-PAN alliances lead to authoritarianism and undermine democracy, when these alliances, in Oaxaca, Sinaloa, and Puebla, recently succeeded in overthrowing authoritarian state governments that had been ruled by PRI for 80 years, is such a brazen distortion of political reality that I am only bracing myself for the next installment of Peña Nieto's "reality show," increasingly removed from reality. 


More here and here.