The Mexico State branch of the party Convergencia is in deep trouble: Massive internal conflicts and infighting among its factions, though over issues that have little to do with ideology.
On the national level, Convergencia is nominally one of the staunchest defenders of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, chiefly due to the fact that the party was going electorally extinct but managed to save its party registry by attaching itself to AMLO's movement. Yet in Mexico State, the party has notably voted with the PRI and Enrique Peña Nieto on a range of occasions, perhaps most infamously when it even backed the vote in the state legislature over the Ley Peña that recently skewed the electoral playing field in favor of the Mexico State governor. One may only speculate in what the party got in return.
In any case, the national party appointed Alejandro Chanona a special delegate to intervene in the state branch, which adamantly opposes any alliance with the PAN, aligning it perfectly, yet again, with the interests of Enrique Peña Nieto.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Breakin' the law: Jalisco gov. Emilio González Márquez "illegal propaganda"
The general council of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) declared that Jalisco Governor Emilio González Márquez broke the country's electoral law by turning ads announcing his "state of the state" into personal political propaganda. González Márquez, infamous for a range of drunken appearances and showering public money on the most arch-conservative sectors of the Catholic church, is also on a quixotic quest to gain the presidential nomination of PAN.
Given the rules under which IFE operates, however, it cannot penalize the governor with a fine, as no legislation exists that stipulates the actual penalty for public servants breaking the law, but IFE did send the case over to the Auditoría Superior of Jalisco state to revise the case and possibly sanction the governor. Don't hold your breath that it will.
Given the rules under which IFE operates, however, it cannot penalize the governor with a fine, as no legislation exists that stipulates the actual penalty for public servants breaking the law, but IFE did send the case over to the Auditoría Superior of Jalisco state to revise the case and possibly sanction the governor. Don't hold your breath that it will.
Porfirio Muñoz Ledo: So be it if PRD disappears
Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, a political acrobat par excellance who has been a member of or campaigned for virtually every one of Mexico's parties, and returned from obscurity when he latched onto the post-2006 movement of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said of the PRD that the "time had come" for the party to fold:
"There is no risk; if the PRD disappears, nothing will happen to this country - I renounced in 1999; the country, that's another thing."
Yes, the "country" certainly survived Muñoz Ledo leaving the PRD in 1999. Indeed, let's recall what happened: He resigned when he lost out both nomination to be mayor of Mexico City as well as to be the PRD's presidential candidate, then lined up behind the candidacy of Vicente Fox and PAN, for which he was awarded a plum ambassadorial position in Europe, which of course makes a mockery of his current "radical" stances and opposition to a PAN electoral alliance.
Yes, parties come and go; PRD itself is only 22 years old, and maybe, though I doubt it, the current crisis of the party will be mortal. Yet the party remains nonetheless the largest party of the left in Mexico; it has played a key role in the Mexican political transition, and continues to be a serious governing party in municipalities and states throughout Mexico. A recent editorial in El Universal made a solid run-down of the importance of a "strong and united" PRD for Mexican democracy.
I also want to add that the PRD is the only real left party in Mexico: The Convergencia, and certainly the party to which Muñoz Ledo now belongs, the Partido del Trabajo, or "workers party" - a misnomer if there ever was one - are not left parties, but highly opportunistic parties that turn their cape wholly to the wind wherever they can reap benefits from it. Without a serious leftwing political party in Mexico, I don't think it is an exaggeration to posit that much of Mexico's current social conflicts might explode and turn violent, unless channeled through the PRD.
As for Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, his political relevance has far since vanished, and also apparently his once-sharp political insights; he would be better advised to use his federal deputy seat for something constructive rather than calling for the destruction of Mexico's only democratic leftwing party.
"There is no risk; if the PRD disappears, nothing will happen to this country - I renounced in 1999; the country, that's another thing."
Yes, the "country" certainly survived Muñoz Ledo leaving the PRD in 1999. Indeed, let's recall what happened: He resigned when he lost out both nomination to be mayor of Mexico City as well as to be the PRD's presidential candidate, then lined up behind the candidacy of Vicente Fox and PAN, for which he was awarded a plum ambassadorial position in Europe, which of course makes a mockery of his current "radical" stances and opposition to a PAN electoral alliance.
Yes, parties come and go; PRD itself is only 22 years old, and maybe, though I doubt it, the current crisis of the party will be mortal. Yet the party remains nonetheless the largest party of the left in Mexico; it has played a key role in the Mexican political transition, and continues to be a serious governing party in municipalities and states throughout Mexico. A recent editorial in El Universal made a solid run-down of the importance of a "strong and united" PRD for Mexican democracy.
I also want to add that the PRD is the only real left party in Mexico: The Convergencia, and certainly the party to which Muñoz Ledo now belongs, the Partido del Trabajo, or "workers party" - a misnomer if there ever was one - are not left parties, but highly opportunistic parties that turn their cape wholly to the wind wherever they can reap benefits from it. Without a serious leftwing political party in Mexico, I don't think it is an exaggeration to posit that much of Mexico's current social conflicts might explode and turn violent, unless channeled through the PRD.
As for Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, his political relevance has far since vanished, and also apparently his once-sharp political insights; he would be better advised to use his federal deputy seat for something constructive rather than calling for the destruction of Mexico's only democratic leftwing party.
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