Monday, December 12, 2011

Leonel Cota, after a 360 turn, does another turn - back with AMLO

One of the more unprincipled and opportunist characters in Mexican politics, Leonel Cota Montaño, is now back in AMLO's fold, the former governor of Baja California Sur apparently seeking a seat at the federal Chamber of Deputies.

This is the same Cota who was once a member of a far left Trotskyist outfit, then joined PRI, then ditched it in 1999, then became pliant and handpicked  PRD president 2005-08 under AMLO, then left the party, seeking candidacies with 1) The Green Party, 2) PANAL, and 3) back to.... PRI!

They all rejected him.

Even AMLO reproached him for this.

And now, appearing at the Movimiento Ciudadano's candidate registry as a re-re-re invented AMLO loyalist, attacking PRD under the leadership of interim president Acosta Naranjo and then Ortega, 2008-11, for having abandoned AMLO, and even accused the PRD of having taken advantage of AMLO in 2006.

Such brazen rewriting and distortion of very recent history must really assume that people truly have no memory.

René Bejarano, he's like the wind

The powerful René Bejarano, head of various clienteles of pseudo-social movements and a long-time collaborator of AMLO, said he will keep a very low profile so as not "damage" the 2012 presidential candidate.

Rather, Bejarano says, he "will be like the wind, felt but not seen."


Many will remember Bejarano from the 2004 video scandals. He spent a time in jail while his wife Dolores Padierna became nominal head of his party faction within the PRD, the IDN.

The mafioso-like utterance aside, for the sake of AMLO's reputation, and to be sure, for that of the PRD, let's hope he sticks to his word.

AMLO registers, PRD left out in the cold

This Friday, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) registered, in three separate events, with the three parties that are carrying his candidacy as presidential candidate in 2012. He even color coordinated his ties: Yellow for PRD, orange for Movimiento Ciudadano, and red for the Workers Party (PT).

Yet the three events were markedly different. For the PRD event, the party to which AMLO technically still belongs - though the past years he has been busy campaigning for its opponents on the left - the ambiance was quite austere. Reportedly AMLO had asked for a low-key event, and in any case, there were significant absences - not Ebrard or Cárdenas, or Jesús Ortega or Héctor Bautista, heads of NI and ADN respectively, two major party factions long critical of AMLO's influence over and effects upon the PRD. Nor Armando Ríos Piter and Carlos Navarrete, heads of the PRD's legislative groups.

And no wonder - just days ago it became clear that NI and ADN were practically excluded from his campaign team, which includes very few people from PRD in general. It read essentially as a who-is-who from 2006, leaving the team from the last presidential contest virtually intact.

AMLO now called for unity - hardly a moment too soon, having been the biggest source of controversy, disunity, and internal fights for the past five years in the PRD. Party President Jesús Zambrano did his part, calling for "Viva López Obrador!" at the event, which was very much an act of protocol compared with the other two - MC and PT - with thousands of attendees, music, and general festivities. AMLO even showed up there with his entire family, four children and spouse Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller.

AMLO's love and peace, in short, does not appear to be extended toward his critics in the PRD.

In that sense, nothing appears to have changed.