Echoes of 1997: New Oaxaca legislature first-ever without PRI majority

At last, half a year (!) after the July 5 state elections, the 61st Oaxaca state legislature was finally installed.
Just like what happened on the national level in 1997, for the first time in Oaxaca's history, PRI will not have a majority in the state congress: PRI will have 16, while the united opposition will total 26 seats. Of those, 11 will be from PAN, 9 from PRD, 3 from Convergencia, 2 from PT, and one for a local party.
The legislature already made history: With a 40-to-2 vote, the deputies made Eufrosina Cruz Mendoza head of the legislature. It was only in 2007 that Cruz Mendoza, an indigenous Zapotec just like the great Benito Juárez, was denied assuming as president of the Santa María Quielogani municipality for being a woman.

One can only hope the PRI deputies will act more responsibly than the outgoing deputies, many of whom were loudly denounced by protesters as they terminated their mandate. Just two weeks ago, the outgoing 25-strong PRI delegation sought to again pass modifications to the charter regulating the operation of congress that would in practice have allowed the incoming largest single - PRI - the control of the most important of the legislature's organ, even if it only had a plurality and not a majority. The Supreme Court struck down this blatant attempt at institutional engineering, but the PRI deputies held a session without the opposition present where they basically passed the same proposed "reform." It is truly in this party's DNA to seek to bend, twist, shape, or brake any law or rule in their favor: You can take the PRI out of power, but never the hunger for power at all cost out of the PRI.

It should therefore hardly come as a surprise that the Supreme Court's @lex, a judicial statistics portal, recently revealed that from 2004-2008, the Oaxaca government headed by outgoing priísta Governor Ulises Ruiz, was the Mexican state that was involved in the highest number of constitutional controversies with the Supreme Court: Ruiz himself was denounced 19 times by different municipalities in the state, as well as 20 times by the Federal government, accused of having violated the constitution.

Already legislators such as Flavio Sosa, former head of Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) and earlier imprisoned by Ruiz, has called for a truth commission,  a demand backed by at least PAN and PRD. Let's hope that incoming governor Gabino Cué will not renege on his promises to thoroughly investigate any and all aspect of the extremely controversial Ruiz years.