Sunday, January 9, 2011

Cuotas y cuates? Among allies, discontent with Malova cabinet appointments in Sinaloa

The new governor of Sinaloa, Mario López Valdez (Malova), who to recall led a victorious broad coalition that included both the PAN and PRD to end a 8-decade PRI hegemony in Sinaloa, had earlier declared he would not fill the cabinet with cuotas y cuates, or according to party quotes and friendships, yet he is now accused of his allies, such as Lucas Lizárraga (PRD), Jorge Luis Sañudo (PT), Felipe Manzanarez (Convergencia) and Francisco Solano (PAN), of doing just so:


This Friday, his political allies questioned his appointment of Francisco and Rocío Labastida Gómez de la Torre, none other than the sons of his friend and also ally, former PRI governor and presidential candidate Francisco Labastida Ochoa, as coordinator of strategic projects and director of the center of science in Sinaloa, as well as that of Juan Ernesto Millán Pietch, also a son of an ex-governor, Juan Millán Lizárraga, to the plum position as secretary of tourism. 


Perhaps it is more of a preventive measure from his coalition partners than anything else, as many positions remain to be fulfilled, but the criticism appears certainly to have put the new governor on the defensive.

Archdiocese of Mexico thrilled with apprehension of Santa Muerte priest

The archdiocese of Mexico, represented by mullah Hugo Valdemar, expressed its deep satisfaction that David Romo Guillén, bishop of the Santa Muerte cult, was apprehended, dismissing it as the "patron saint of killers, drug dealers, custodians, thieves, kidnappers, prostitutes, police and extortionists," which it very much is.

Unlike the Archdiocese of Mexico, which if not in name, in practice to be sure is the patron saint of child raping pedophiles.

Calderón's cabinet shuffle: Good riddance to Juan Molinar Horcasitas

Good riddance to the utterly incompetent Juan Molinar Horcasitas, who will step down from his position as secretary of communication and transportation, in favor of Dionisio Pérez Jácome. Rumors have it that he will take on a significant party position within the PAN, yet he remains thoroughly unpopular with many panistas and highly questioned for his role as as head of the IMSS, as well as of the SCT, where corruption charges bloomed.
José Antonio Meade is also replacing Georgina Kessel as energy secretary.


Of note: Roberto Gil Zuarth, national deputy and PAN hotshot, gets a massive consolation price for declining for Gustavo Madero when the vote in the national council to become party president went in his disfavor: He will become the president's personal secretary, achieving vast influence over Calderón's agenda.

Machismo in San Lázaro: Whatever happened to the gender quotas?

First, the breakdown of gender in San Lázaro, Mexico's Chamber of Deputies:
365 are men (73 percent), while 135 are women (27 percent). Yet these figures, in terms of lack of gender parity, are worse than they should be: While the parties have followed federal laws regarding nomination of women candidates, once elected office, far too many diputadas (20-plus) have stepped down, allowing their male diputado suplente, or substitute deputies, to simply take their place, in a crude and particularly .offensive manner in which the parties are brazenly circumventing the laws on candidate gender quotas. They are often referred to as diputadas juanitas, a reference to AMLO's shameful postulation of the street-vendor-cum-stripper-cum-borough chief, Juanito, in Iztapalapa in 2009.
The PRI in particular has resorted to this mechanism.

The defense of Mexico's forests, "ever more dangerous"

The number of environmental crimes, or at least the denunciation thereof, appears on the rise: 5916 legal complaints filed in 2001, vs. 8154 in 2009 - a 40-plus percent rise. This could of course mean either that more crimes are committed or that more crimes are filed.

Regardless, as Greenpeace notes, the defense of Mexico's forests has become an ever more dangerous activity;
defenders of Mexico's forests, including activists, members of Mexico's forest communities, as well as of PROFEPA, the federal attorney for environmental protection, have been harassed, including arbitrary arrests, torture, gunshots, and threats. In particularly Durango, Chihuahua and Michoacán, entire forest zones are "no-go" areas, rather in hands of drug gangs, illegal loggers and, notably according to Greenpeace, thugs hired by international corporations to ensure their exploitation of valuable areas.

Kudos to Milenio for its recent focus on Mexico's forests and environmental crimes.

Yet another victory for gay rights in Mexico City: Social Security for gay couple

Lol Kin Castañeda and Judith Vázquez were among the first gay couples to marry in Mexico City. They were, however, denied future social security benefits from the Mexican social security institute (IMSS), which argued that it only applied to partners of different sex.

They complained, and they won: A judge in labor law ruled that Castañeda can indeed be inscribed as a beneficiary of her partner, and that whether she is of the same sex or not is irrelevant.
Yet another notable legal victory for gay rights in Mexico City.

Days after Coahuila interim governor in place, Rubén Moreira declares his candidacy for governor

Mere days after his brother Humberto stepped down as governor of Coahuila, Rubén Moreira officially declared his intention to seek the PRI nomination to be governor of the state. There will be no campaigning for the candidacy;  Rubén is the PRI's only candidate.

The decision was hardly a shocker; Humberto has long groomed his brother for this position. Yet it is nonetheless, in form and content, a sad throwback to the nepotism of the not-too-distant (if at all distant) past, where direct family members are postulated so as to maintain political control of an entity. As much as political dynasties exist and are criticized in the United States and elsewhere, at least solid political counter forces and political institutions capable of checking them exist, for the most past, unlike in most states in Mexico.
So much for "effective suffrage, no reelection."

Encinas backtracks on "consultation," says Oaxaca different but not why

After the good news from the PRD's national political commission that it would put the question on a possible alliance with the PRD out to a party base vote, Encinas now somewhat disingenuously says he has heard nothing of it, and will reject a PAN alliance regardless. So much for listening to the "people." Encinas also says the case of Oaxaca, where the PRD in a successful alliance ended the disastrous reign of the PRI, is different from Mexico State, though he does not tell us why. Wasn't the main objective to get rid of a 80-odd year PRI monopoly, which thanks to a barrage of dubious or outright illegal measures could only be defeated by a broad coalition?

I wish Encinas could be a bit more independent from AMLO; with all due respect for Encinas long political trajectory, anytime AMLO has said jump, Encinas has jumped. One can even regard his very candidacy at least partly as such; AMLO pushed him hard, in private and in public, when his utterly disastrous postulation of Yeidckol Polevnsky saw his own backers leave him.

A step toward possible prosecution: Judge denies amparo to Amalia García

A Zacatecas city judge denied former Amalia García a writ of amparo, which she had filed through a law firm to seek to avoid legal complaints about her alleged responsibility in administrative irregularities in the state she governed for six years.

García, whose administration is under scrutiny by a new PRI-led government, had sought to freeze the investigation of a possible 1.4 billion pesos embezzlement, where she is herself implicated directly in at least four out of 39 proceedings. No such luck.

Note that the ex governor had earlier claimed she would not resort to any such legal measures, which is now exposed, as it goes, as an "untruth."

García has claimed political persecution, given that the new government is closely allied with her old nemesis, Ricardo Monreal. We shall see.