PRI finally delivered on its threat to seek impeachment against Emilio González Márquez, and filed a petition in the federal chamber of deputies to have the Jalisco governor removed from power for a range of impeachable offenses, including violating the Constitution as well as various federal and criminal laws.
The issue at hand: A social conflict regarding the Tenacatita beach in Jalisco in the municipality of La Huerta. A group of villagers were kicked off property adjacent to the beach, as the surrounding property has allegedly been sold to a company that wants to turn it into a a beach resort. The case appears to be as nasty as it sounds: The locals have been harrassed, beaten, received death threats, by both private security guards as well as local Jalisco state police backing them, in order to force them off the land they say is theirs and noone's to sell.
Federal deputies from PRI, such as David Hernández Pérez and Salvador Caro Cabrera, wants to have the governor impeached. In a seeming "nailing-Al-Capone-for-tax-fraud" maneuver, they argue the governor has blocked a federal highway that gives access to the disputed property, violating free transit, to the beach, which the Mexican Constitution establishes as a public good. While future investigations of the alcoholic governor will likely show up much worse malfeasance than this (particularly showering taxpayers' money on Catholic church ,which in Jalisco is remarkably reactionary), this one may actually well come to a fruition: Reportedly, Francisco Rojas, who is head of PRI's huge parliamentary group, is backing the petition of the Jalisco legislators.
Notably, less than two months ago, the lower house of Congress voted unamimously to demand that the Jalisco government follow recommendations by the state's Human Rights Commission) to remove police forces, unblock the road, and end its siege and allow free access to La Huerta. The governor's response? Completely ignoring it.
Should this really come to be - should governor González Márquez' arrogance finally take him down - there will be some serious celebration by your truly fueled by the finest product of Jalisco - a state that so much deserves a better government than its current foul-mouthed drunkard.
The governor IS a complete piece of work. He and Villalobos (the man doing the grabbing) are very good buddies back from when Villalobos was president of the Guadalajara chamber of commerce. The love affair continues now that Villalobos has landed the top spot at Guadalajara Expo, which is a huge conglomerate of conference centers and the main venue for the Panamerican Games coming up next october. Emilio (the governor) is the president of the Board at the Guadalajara Panamerican Games and Villalobos is of course very close as well since he is president at the venue.
ReplyDeleteThis impeachment covers a lot of other actions besides the highway issue. Mexicans are free to land at any Mexican beach. If you try that at Tenacatita the "cops" will pummel you, in another insult to the Mexican Constitution. When they made the grab, the cops showed up at three in the morning. That is a "no no" for this kind of a thing. If you are going to kick people of from somewhere, Mexican law states that it has to be during normal working hours. In this case there was no previous warning and there is a wealth of photographic and video evidence of widespread looting and stealing by the police. If you do a search for Tenacatita and desalojo on youtube you will find all kinds of stuff including what they did to a perfectly good Mercedes that had been parked there.
A thing yet to be investigated is how Villalobos got this judge to throw the order out there. On a case this big with both parties having government certified land papers, determining ownership should have been a much broader deal and not something done by some little judge in Cihuatlán who was obviously bought by Villalobos.
Beyond the obvious Tenacatita fiasco is the drinking while on duty. Look up "gobernador borracho" on youtube, it is a real treat. Apparently if we don't agree with him we can go &^%%$ our mothers and the slurred speech makes it pretty obvious just how wasted he is. Then if he had had some balls, he would have stood by it but instead, the next day found him, in the midst of a bad hangover apologizing for his stupidity. The scandal with the Macrobus, his troubles with the University of Guadalajara and his latest little thing where he announced that gays made him queasy makes him really hard to support but support him some did, the leadership at the PAN (his political party) has stood by him even insinuating that the PRI staged the whole Tenacatita fiasco last Sunday where the cops there pepper sprayed everyone at the illegal gate blocking the state road to Tenacatita. According to the PAN, the Representatives went there to "take advantage of the villager's good will" and that they were professional rabble rousers. I have to say that if a politician comes and helps me insist my rights under the constitution even as the pepper spray and the blows fly, he has my vote and I don't care if he is doing it for politics or not. The point is, he is serving me, something not too common in Mexican politics and should this work, you won't be the only one having a tequila to celebrate.
I forgot to say that Villalobos has a security company called Sepromex and that many personnel from that company were there and they were allowed to dress like state police and have detachable emblems on their vehicles. Sepromex is another area someone should study closely. If you go their site which is the name of the company .com.mx, you will find under their clients, the government of Jalisco. Now why would the state government, which has the state police, need to hire a private security firm? Those would be some books I would be REALLY interested in seeing.
ReplyDeleteCyberpueblo, many thanks for very insightful comments. I truly enjoyed your Web page as well, which is deserving of a wide readership. Regarding "Etilio" - the first round of Herradura will be on me.
ReplyDeleteVery good, and there should be many tequilas, certainly a worthwhile toast. I plan to push it in person in December.
ReplyDeleteBest,
J.