I remain convinced that what AMLO really desires is to be expelled from the PRD, and almost certainly so should the party choose Ebrard as its 2012 contender: It would allow him to denounce the PRD as simply in cahoots with Calderón and present the expulsion as yet another act of the complot or plot of the "mafia" against him.
Jesús Ortega, however, declared the party would not expel AMLO - this no matter how much they might desire it, should I add: It would simply convert the internal party fracture into an open break, as AMLO would draw a significant sector of the party with him. Ortega also noted there is no such thing as a "leave of absence" - one is either a member of the party and campaigns for it, or one does not. Don't expect this, however, from preventing AMLO from producing his own candidate for the Mexico State governorship, likely to be inept AMLO acolyte Senator Yeidkol Polevnsky, should a PAN-PRD alliance materialize.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
In defense of AMLO: Calderón's criticism petty
In 2006, the PAN campaign infamously launched a barrage of ads denouncing AMLO as a "danger to Mexico." Whatever one thinks or thought of AMLO, rejecting one's major political opponent in a democracy as a "danger" - one that had successfully governed Mexico City for five years, and was backed by more than a third of the electorate - was a despicably low blow that exposed the PAN candidate as highly contemptuous of the Mexican electorate. It was, to be sure, also condemned by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), which banned several of the most offensive attack ads.
In the Mexican context, a president should be above petty political fight, yet Calderón in an interview yesterday with the (excellent) journalist Salvador Camarena, openly defended the 2006 slogan as "true and valid," and the AMLO moreover remain a danger to Mexico.
While it may seem strange from a US context of heavy campaigning from the White House, relatively clear rules regulate how much the president can do of active political proselytizing. Yet even more so, such direct criticism of AMLO, a man who today holds no elected office or appointed position, is simply petty and unworthy of the president; it should be beneath him.
In the Mexican context, a president should be above petty political fight, yet Calderón in an interview yesterday with the (excellent) journalist Salvador Camarena, openly defended the 2006 slogan as "true and valid," and the AMLO moreover remain a danger to Mexico.
While it may seem strange from a US context of heavy campaigning from the White House, relatively clear rules regulate how much the president can do of active political proselytizing. Yet even more so, such direct criticism of AMLO, a man who today holds no elected office or appointed position, is simply petty and unworthy of the president; it should be beneath him.
Secretary of Health José Ángel Córdova and Guanajuato: Kicking against the El Yunque pricks
It is an open secret, which makes it no secret at all, that José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, federal secretary of health, is very interested in becoming the next governor of Guanajuato. A couple of days ago, ahead of the the Semana Binacional de Salud, or Binational Health Week, a major international health conference that just happened to be arranged in his native Guanajuato, Córdova Villalobos warned that the PAN could lose the state in 2012, due to internal "fractures" in the ruling Partido Acción Nacional, PAN.
What the health secretary is really saying is that due to the extremist policies of the state government, headed by Governor Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez, it might lose the state in 2012. The local state branch of PAN is in Guanajuato in hands of El Yunque, an extreme catholic far right falangist secret organization, and the public policies of Oliva Ramírez' government have been disaster: The state was recently forced, due to local and international pressure, to release scores of women locked up for having had miscarriages and abortions, and has an extremely retrograde education system that virulently fights any sex education or information on contraceptives. Not coincidentally, the state has Mexico's highest rate of teen pregnancy. It is also the only one of Mexico's 32 federal entities that has refused to pass a law to prevent violence against women. So much for "family values."
José Ángel Córdova is painfully aware that the backlash against these extreme policies may well cause PAN to lose the state, and this is the real reason behind his thinly veiled attack on the current PAN government of Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez. It would serve the PAN and Mexico well to rid its party organization of the rightwing extremists of El Yunque; a win for Córdova in Guanajuato in 2012 - he is both a PAN moderate, and as a health professional is painfully aware of the destructive effect on El Yunque's influence on policy - would only be a good thing.
What the health secretary is really saying is that due to the extremist policies of the state government, headed by Governor Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez, it might lose the state in 2012. The local state branch of PAN is in Guanajuato in hands of El Yunque, an extreme catholic far right falangist secret organization, and the public policies of Oliva Ramírez' government have been disaster: The state was recently forced, due to local and international pressure, to release scores of women locked up for having had miscarriages and abortions, and has an extremely retrograde education system that virulently fights any sex education or information on contraceptives. Not coincidentally, the state has Mexico's highest rate of teen pregnancy. It is also the only one of Mexico's 32 federal entities that has refused to pass a law to prevent violence against women. So much for "family values."
José Ángel Córdova is painfully aware that the backlash against these extreme policies may well cause PAN to lose the state, and this is the real reason behind his thinly veiled attack on the current PAN government of Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez. It would serve the PAN and Mexico well to rid its party organization of the rightwing extremists of El Yunque; a win for Córdova in Guanajuato in 2012 - he is both a PAN moderate, and as a health professional is painfully aware of the destructive effect on El Yunque's influence on policy - would only be a good thing.
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