Nayarit 2011 elections: PAN-PRD alliance official, of sorts. For AMLO, history repeated as farce

The national presidents of PRD and PAN, Jesús Ortega and César Nava respectively, signed a "letter of intent" where the parties committed to maintain an electoral alliance for the upcoming gubernatorial elections in Nayarit, regardless of whether the candidate will be a perredista or panista.

PRD has a very strong card: Federal deputy Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, a very congenial man who tends to be popular with most everyone and has moreover a reputation as an effective leader. Acosta Naranjo was just granted a leave of absence from the Chamber of Deputies, and has already started criss-crossing the state, which will hold elections July 3, 2011.

However, the wife of former governor Antonio Echavarría, Martha Elena García, also a PRD deputy, has declared she will also run for the nomination. To recall, PRD ran Nayarit 1999-2005, when AMLO enticed Antonio Echavarría to dump the PRI to join the PRD and run for governor under a broad alliance that also included the PAN  - yes, the party that AMLO is now loudly declaring it is impossible to ally with anywhere at all given "principled differences." AMLO has, of course, opposed a PAN-PRD alliance in Nayarit in 2011. Of course, since 1999, much water has run under the bridge, such as the 2006 elections, which AMLO claims cheated him from victory. To be upset at PAN for 2006 is of course quite understandably, if you truly believe a fraud took place. Yet claiming "principled differences" is just pure hypocrisy, given AMLO's promotion of the previous PAN-PRD alliance in Nayarit.

Note that Martha Elena García already in 2005 wanted to become governor to succeed her husband - which should make alarm bells of nepotism ring loudly. The kicker: She was then not a PRD member, nor a PRI member, but sought the PAN nomination (!) - only the arch-opportunistic party Convergencia backed her candidacy then, which she desisted from, and renounced from the PAN. Her PRD credentials are, to put it mildly, wafer thin. Yet don't be surprised if AMLO backs her nomination: Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, a man who has never been a PRI or PAN member yet with a life-long pedigree on the political left, is also a member of the social-democratic PRD faction Nueva Izquierda, which AMLO loathes.