Friday, July 23, 2010

Ortega until 2011?

Ebrard and a range of governors are pushing for PRD President Jesús Ortega to stay on until August 2011, when the last round of state elections ends before the 2012 presidential election. 


Before the andresmanualistas and bejaranistas start howling "¡Continuismo! it is worth recalling that while Ortega's 3-year tenure was supposed to start in March 2008, when he won the internal PRD elections, this heavily disputed and dirty election was not settled until November 2008 by the courts.  It therefore makes quite sense that he would serve for the period for which he actually was elected.  


A bit more from La Jornada here

New "social democratic" party in DF

Senator René Arce, aware that his chances of becoming the PRD's mayoral candidate in Mexico City evaporated after the Iztapalapa debacle in 2009, has now declared he will form a new party. Arce's claims that the new party will "not be founded on populism, the returning of favors and clientelism" rings rather hollow given his group's resorting to these very same mechanism's in their former stronghold of Iztapalapa. 


The new party, which apparently will attract a range of former perredistas and members of the now-extint Partido Socialdemócrata, will nonetheless likely serve to hurt the PRD's chances of retaining Mexico City. 



When the shoe is on the other foot: PAN government impugns IFE

Here's a first: For the first time since the IFE's creation, the Federal government takes IFE to court (the TEPJF) for its recent resolution on President Felipe Calderón's electoral interference. (IFE decided Calderón had violated the constitution  by proselytizing ahead of the July 4 elections).