No longer a "Danger to Mexico"? AMLO courts business sectors

During the 2006 presidential campaign, dirty media campaigns from the PAN but also "swift-boat"-style black propaganda ads from representatives of Mexico's business sectors, contributed to AMLO's narrow loss. This time, ahead of his desire to run in 2012, it is quite notable how AMLO is seeking to convince business sectors that he is far from the "Danger to Mexico" the dirty ads once made him out to be. 


In Monterey, Nuevo León, on Tuesday, AMLO met with key businessmen and leaders from the Asociación Nacional de Empresarios Independientes (ANEI),  including former PAN governor Fernando Canales Clariond, who was notably also the secretary of economy and energy under Fox, and presented his business program to them. It was not a hostile crowd. Businessman Fernando Turner Dávila notably that one should not satanizar or "demonize" the former presidential candidate. ANEI is a relatively new organization, yet has attracted more than seven thousand small and medium business, many of whom have lost out given the general economic cllimate and economic policies of Calderón. 


Yesterday in Guadalajara, he similarly met with businessmen from the a Cámara Nacional de Comercio (CANACO) and  Unión de Comerciantes del Mercado de Abasto (UCMA). AMLO declared.

"There are no substantive differences. In the economic model we want to reinvigorate the economy generate jobs, so in this there is complete agreement. We will continue talking and exchanging views....We want them to directly know the things that we are proposing, so that there is no distrorion, so that no one is jumping on a media campaign to instill fear in the people."

Miguel Alfaro Aranguren, head of CANACO in Guadalajara, when asked if AMLO was still a "danger to Mexico," responded,"It is very hard to label someone like that." Indeed it is. Perhaps someone should have acted a bit more responsibly before tacking this label to AMLO in 2006 as well?


Three more comments:


1) As many noted in 2006, AMLO's business proposals were hardly radical, and he was not a leftwing extremist bent on implementing socialism or anything similar, but actually very pro business. Yet his rhetoric was not: The social democrats in the PRD repeatedly asked him to calm down his attacks on the oligarchy, now "mafia," as it would scare away business. As Jésus Ortega told me, "Yes, 'First the Poor,' but let us not forget about the middle class, and business sectors.' Had AMLO listened then, he would likely have been president now. 


2) He nonetheless continues in the best populist fashion with attacking the "oligarchy" - that is, not the entire upper classes or business (he is certainly not a class warrior in the Marxist sense), but just like the classic populists, attacking only some selected parts  - the "mafia," those "robbing the country," and so forth. 


3) What doe his hard-core ultraloyal "radical" supporters think of AMLO's open courting of business? While a few might find it contradictory, it is my hunch that most of them are perfectly fine with it, as the whole radical-thing is a but a mere cover for them to opportunistically jump on board with AMLO due to tactical benefits from an alliance with him. That goes particularly for PT and Convergencia, who were able to save their party registries due to him, but also for the "radicals" within PRD.

"Noroña's penis": Ciro Gómez Leyva

I commented yesterday on the antics of Gerardo Fernández Noroña, the former PRD-turned-PT diputado who is seen as one of the most "radical" of the andresmanuelistas,  or ultra-loyal backers of former presidential candidate  Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). In today's Milenio, Ciro Gómez offers a quite humorous commentary on the PT legislator: 

"What is one to say about the machismo of the new diva of political vaudeville, Gerardo Fernandez Noroña, who shouts that those who are looking for him will find him, who is telling Genaro García Luna to his face that he is a murderer. Wow! The brave Noroña, with immunity from prosecution. I suppose that to maintain this level, in the next appearance he will take out his penis and demand a right of reply."

More here. 

¡Qué alguien me explique! Why did AMLO senators vote against the tobacco tax?

Yeidckol Polevnsky, Rosalinda López, Josefina Cota Cota and Francisco Castellón Fonseca are four of the PRD senators who on numerous occasions have professed their loyalty to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and among a group of PRD and PT senators who most recently declared they would back AMLO as a presidential candidate.

Two days ago, however, when the Senate ratified the proposed rise in 7 pesos - a mere 50 U.S. cents - increase in tobacco taxes per cigarette pack, the four legislators voted against it - the only ones from the PRD to do so.  In addition, three Convergencia senators, a party that also has declared its ultraloyalty to AMLO, did the same - Ericel Gómez Nucamendi, Francisco García Lizardi and Eugenio Govea Arcos.
From the Partido del Trabajo, ostensibly diehard andresmanuelistas, its senate coordinator Ricardo Monreal abstained from voting, while his PT colleague Javier Obregón Espinoza voted in favor.

Why? Why on earth would these ostensibly "radical" politicians vote against raising the tobacco tax?
¡Qué alguien me explique!

a) Is it that AMLO is particularly pro-smoking?
b) Can it be that these "radical" senators are really corrupt opportunists, bought and paid for by the tobacco industry?
c) ????

You make your pick.

PT deputy Fernández Noroña at it again: Calderón a "drunkard."

Professional rabble rouser Gerardo Fernández Noroña, who was spokesperson for the PRD, loudly resigned from the party, and then became a national deputy for the Workers Party (Partido del Trabajo, PT), produced yet another memorable moment in San Lázaro, in relation with the appearance of the (admittedly inept) Secretary of Communication and Transportation, Juan Francisco Molinar Horcasitas in Congress. Noroña dixit:

"In this spurious cabinet there are three secretaries that are even worse than Calderón. They are Molinar Horcasitas, Javier Lozano and Genaro García Luna, and are of a cynicism, a shameless, a bad abominable chore, you should be in prison, and they will be, because in life all is temporary... and moreover they need to be like this, they need to be like this in order to take a job from a drunkard like Calderón."

OK, so Noroña, who rejects the legitimacy of Calderón at any and all occasion, can be quite entertaining in his antics. Yet how much good does these insults do to make Mexico a better place - and to make the Chamber of Deputies a more respected institution?

Three most sensible statements from Marcelo Ebrard in Madrid

From Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico City chief of government, during his visit to commemorate the Spanish exiles who fled to Mexico during and after the Spanish Civil War, when Lázaro Cárdenas opened the doors for them:

1. On AMLO:

"I have a good relationship with him, with different accents and different tactics and strategies. But the deal is that the Left must only have one candidate, because anything else would be madness."

2. On how to choose the Left's candidate:

"We will determine the candidate with a simple method, which is that in the second half of 2011, through polls, decide who has the ability to better represent the Left in order to what the majority of the electorate thinks. If we do an internal consultation, between party members who would vote this day, we will be making a strategic mistake."

3. And finally, on the Spanish exiliados:

"The exiles didn't arrive in Mexico in order to demand; they arrived in order to give and share what they had: labor, knowledge, talent, creativity, teaching, and solidarity."

Amen to all three.

Feigned anger as Alonso Lujambio marks territory as presidential candidate.

Federal Secretary of Education Alonso Lujambio, in an attack on both Marcelo Ebrard and Enrique Peña Nieto, made his biggest step yet toward presenting himself as a contender for the 2012 presidency. In Madrid, Spain, in what would have been the first debate  between the three "pre-candidates," Lujambio criticized both his possible future opponents for failing to show up this would-be coming-out party, a forum arranged by Fundación Botín, bankrolled by Banco Santander, to engage in a first open debate with the education secretary. Neither Ebrard nor Peña Nieto attended the forum. 


Lujambio huffed and puffed at this perceived affront: Against Peña Nieto, he noted:

"It alarms me that señor Peña Nieto has become an example of unilateral communication. From the monologue of the [political television/internet] ad, or that of paid news stories. It alarms me that he will only appear publicly in controlled environments, encapsulated for smiles and photos."

Yet his anger was more than a tad feigned: It was revealed that Peña Nieto had announced days ago he would not attend; as for Ebrard, when his team learned about the participation of former president Carlos Salinas, a figure loathed by the left, in the said forum, Ebrard backed straight out of it. 

What the incident did serve to do, however, was to present Alonso Lujambio as a candidate for the nomination to be PAN's presidential candidate - if any doubt remained, that is.