Jalisco congress summons Governor Emilio González Márquez to explain budget

Governor Emilio González Márquez has some explaining to do. The Jalisco state congress voted 20-0, with 15 abstentions, to summon the governor to appear in congress to explain his projected budget for 2011. 


The case is this: Last year's final budget had an extra sum of 10 billion pesos of income that had not been linked to concrete budgeted expenditures. That means in practice that the governor had a bunch of extra money available that nobody knows how or where was spent, according to PRD legislator Raúl Vargas López. 


This is quite troubling. The governor has been known in the past to have tried on several occasion to shower public money on the church and dubious private interests, with little accountability or even in direct breach of the law. Moreover, Jalisco is struggling with funds shortages for everything from underfunded education to medical facilities, and it now appears the governor for the previous year drastically underestimated the state's income, which allowed him to use the surplus as he saw fit. 


Emilio González Márquez, a foul-mouthed alcoholic, is a gift that keeps on giving, and I predict his government will come tumbling down far before his term is due, either due to his impeachment, or through new scandals yet to see the light of day. He will now legally have to appear before the state congress to explain this discrepancy, which quite likely is only the tip of the iceberg regarding the financial irregularities of his administration that will eventually be uncovered. 

Hubris be thy name: Carla Humphrey, wife of Roberto Gil, rejected as IEDF head

The arrogance of Carla Humphrey finally brought her down: It is now clear that she utterly blew her chances of becoming president of the Instituto Electoral del Distrito Federal (IEDF), the important electoral institute for Mexico City, by accompanying her husband Roberto Gil when he registered to become a candidate for the national presidency of PAN last week. El Universal reports that outgoing President Claudia Zavala, who was elected in 2008 with no possibility of reelection, changed the preference she had declared for Humphrey last week, in favor of Gustavo Anzaldo, who with Zavala's vote got the necessary majority to be the new president of IEDF. 


Whether it was a case hubris or just sheer stupidity is hard to ascertain, but it is a quite remarkable display of arrogance that Carla Astrid Humphrey Jordan didn't think her blatant display of partisanship would not have repercussions, with the added insult to injury that she was not only a member of the electoral institute but moreover sought to be its president. Following Zavala's changed vote, Humphrey angrily declared, 

"Your attitude, councilor Zavala, does not affect me, but weakens the deliberative and decision-making processes of the institute.You, by changing the meaning of the word you gave at a meeting of the council members, vioalte the institutes internal life, its autonomy."

It is quite remarkable to hear Humphrey, whose actions, if elected, would have risked destroying any perception of IEDF's autonomy and impartiality, accuse Zavala of weakening the institute. 

Yet the issue does not stop there: 39 deputies of the Mexico City legislature, from PRD, PRI, PT, PVEM, and PANAL, in a far-to rare display of agreement, presented to the assembly's legislative commission a request to have Humphrey removed as an IEDF legislator all together. 


And PAN?PAN meekly retorted that the other parties were engaging in "machismo." 
It is hard to believe the panistas believe their own charge. Oh, the joys of schadenfreude.