Ass-kissing of the year award, 2012

Edith Mendoza Pino, PRI mayor of Tulum, Quintana Roo, held a lavish party a few months ago after stepping down involuntarily from office. The farewell party was quite fittingly at the public treasury's expense, in keeping with her modus operandi of skimming the municipal treasury. Worse still, it turned out that Mendoza as well had granted a lot of tax reprieves of her own volition to companies operating in Tulum - something that of course was absolutely not in her authority, and  illegal.

Upon her arrest on Dec 7, Mendoza's desperate groveling appeal for, apparently, some kind of presidential pardon is nearly epic:

My sin is to have backed (President Enrique) Peña Nieto, when (Governor Roberto Borge, also PRI) gave the order to not back the President of the Republic... only two municipalities were won in the state, and one of them was Tulum. I won, I won the election for Peña Nieto, and this was also one of my sins.

Please, please, please, señor presidente - really, I only did it for you!
Ass-kisser of the year, Edith Mendoza Pino!

(and a bonus attitude point: The ex-mayor refused to come out of her SUV when she was arrested, which prompted federal agents to confiscate and impound the vehicle with miss Edith inside it!)

Image: What the companies in Tulum actually paid in taxes compared what they owe, courtesy of self-professed sinner Mendoza:



Source:
Ex alcaldesa "perdonó" impuestos a empresas. El Universal, Dec. 12, 2012.
Encuentran en Tulum desorden por 49 mdp. El Universal, Dec. 11, 2012.
Detienen a ex alcaldesa de Tulum; enfrentará juicio.  El Universal, Dec. 8, 2012.

PAN membership cut in two

Ill-wishers of PAN will likely read it as a verdict of 12 generally mediocre years of PAN government, and they may well be right: It is hard to drum up much enthusiasm for the PAN in 2012, the year it came third in the presidential contest (last time was in 1988), and moreover handed the keys of Los Pinos back to the PRI: In its campaign of re-affiliation, PAN's membership looks like it will be cut in two, from around 1.8 million to less than 900.000. PAN essentially followed the PRD's move to not just renew its membership lists but really start out from scratch, where all party members had to reconfirm their intentions of being a member.

The main motivation for the initiative: The many disastrously dirty and fraudulent candidate selection processes taking place in the PAN ahead of the 2012 federal elections. PAN took long pride in its reputation as a party of "clean hands," which the past two sexenios have exposed as quite a joke. Its internal elections, moreover, given fraud in party rolls and last minute mass-affiliations of "swallows," who sign up just to leave the party when the election is over, even grew dirtier than those of its main rival on the left, the PRD. That says a lot of the PAN's fall.

Source:
PAN prevé perder 50% de militantes. El Universal, Dec. 9, 2012

Fox, no longer with PAN

Many in the PAN would like to kick Vicente Fox out of the party, above all given his increasingly public embrace of then-PRI candidate and now president Enrique Peña Nieto. Yet Fox might beat them to it: The former president (2000-6) said he won't renew his party membership, in protest over those who have "appropriated" the party - a not-too-veiled reference to ex-president Felipe Calderón.

Not that Fox was ever very close to the PAN - even though he was a federal deputy for the party already back in 1988 and won the presidency on the PAN label in 2000, he pretty much ignored the party when in government, an amazingly stupid approach given his infamous inability to get anything done as president.

That Fox will simply cease to be a member is also convenient for the party itself, as it will avoid the messy spectacle of a protracted expulsion process. Fox, for his part, will go down in history as the candidate who kicked the PRI out of national power, but then helped it get back in again in 2012. And not very much more.

Source:

Fox duda seguir en el PAN. El Universal, Nov. 26, 2012

PRD's Alejandro Encinas: Political cowerdice

Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez is co-founder of the PRD, and a very important person within the party. Over the past years he's threatened to leave the party a few times, all with regards to the internal dispute within the party over its resistance to Andrés Manuel López Obrador's attempt to make the PRD a completely servile party at his full service, its only purpose to exist being to bring AMLO to the Mexican presidency. Encinas was a very moderate center-left politician, who did a pretty good job holding a few different secretaries in Mexico City, and twice was interim mayor when AMLO was first impeached and when he then stepped down to pursue the presidency. But since then, Encinas has lost very much credibility as he appeared increasingly subordinated to whatever commands AMLO issued to him.

Now, with AMLO actively recruiting PRD members to join his new personal party Morena, Encinas is again in the spotlight as a possible defector from the PRD. Ex-party president Jesús Ortega, who won leadership of the party in 2008 against the AMLO-backed Encinas, called Encinas out recently: Either you go with Morena, or you stay in the PRD, but make up your mind.

Encinas' response is truly embarrassing: He will wait making he decision, and base it on whether Morena really manages to convert itself into a party (officially register with the federal electoral institute, that is). In other words, Encinas is taking no chances - he will enjoy the fat privileges of being a senator for the PRD, but is not loyal to the party and might leave it - but only if he is assured he has a new party ready for him. Say whatever you want about Martí Batres, a hard-left authoritarian unreconstructed stalinist who recently ditched the PRD, but did so in order to build AMLO's new Morena - as opposed to merely waiting for the new party to be ready - the table set, and then show up - like Encinas. This is nothing less than political cowardice.

Source:
Líderes perredistas descartan ir a Morena. El Universal, Nov. 27, 2012

Mario Vargas Llosa meets with new Mexico City mayor

Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa met yesterday with Miguel Mancera, where he pronounced that Mexico needs a "modern left."

Not only is Vargas Llosa hardly a man of the left himself - he's a classic liberal, in the Latin American sense of the word (nothing to do with the U.S. use of the term, and far more economically liberal than European liberals) - and lest we forget, just a few weeks ago, he snubbed Mexico's president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto when the latter was on a visit to Spain.

But to the incoming mayor of Mexico City, he did find the time.

Source:
Se necesita izquierda moderna: Vargas Llosa. El Universal, Nov. 26, 2012

Mexico GDP growth, 1988-2012

Let the graphic below from Reforma (h/t gerardoesquivel.blogspot.com) pronounce the verdict on 12 years of PAN rule:

AMLO's party is born

AMLO finally has his own party: Yesterday, his Morena movement held its constituent assembly to become a political party. 1676 delegates gathered to elected 204 of its 300 national councilors, and "voted" by a raising of the hands (!) AMLO to be president of the party council. So much for a democratic voto secreto y libre! Delegates also approved its statutes and declaration of principles of the new party.

They will next vote to choose a party president, which will be a meaningless position given that AMLO will in any case exercise full control of his own, custom-made, personalized, personalistic, patrimonial party. One likely candidate is the disgraced Martí Batres Guadarrama, who just one day earlier finally left the PRD. He will not be missed by any proponent of the PRD as a serious, modern, democratic left party: Batres represented its worst authoritarian hard-left nationalistic thugishness. His departure is the PRD's gain.

In the long run, so I believe, is AMLO's.

From Milenio.com

UPDATE: Batres it is.

Picture from Milenio.com

Source:
AMLO: con Morena, el reinicio. El Universal, Nov. 20, 2012
Deja Martí Batres al PRD por Morena. Milenio.com. Nov. 18, 2012


Eligen a Martí Batres presidente de Morena. Milenio.com. Nov. 20. 2012

OECD to Mexico: Kick teacher union from education secretariat

Gabriela Ramos,directors of the secretary general's office at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), had pretty choice words on Mexico's teacher union SNTE for Mexico's new incoming PRI government:

The union needs to to what obviously all unions do in the countries that have made progress in their education system: to ensure that teachers have the best working conditions, better training, and then leave to authorities the decisions on how to make assessments, performance awards, recruitment of teachers and principals, as well as allocation of positions

Amen. In Mexico, the SNTE and its notorious mafia-like president-for-life Elba Esther Gordillo is the proverbial fox guarding the hen house, taking for itself the liberty to do the tasks Ramos mentions, and doing them extremely poorly.

Will Enrique Peña Nieto do what Carlos Salinas did in 1989, namely to remove a vastly corrupt SNTE head,J oaquín Hernández Galicia, in order to gain some credibility as a reformer?

If so, let's hope the analogy will not be complete: The replacement for "La Quina" turned out to be...  Elba Esther Gordillo.

Source:
Sugiere la OCDE marginar a SNTE de directriz educativa. El Universal, Nov. 15, 2012.

AMLO's parody of a party to be launched Nov. 19-20

The Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional or Morena, the personal, customized, made-to-fit party of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and stuffed with his relatives, hardcore supporters, and a good bunch of opportunists, will be officially launched in a national assembly on Nov. 19-20.

This will be a parody of a party: It is a tool created solely for one purpose, which is for AMLO to run for a third time for the Mexican presidency. It has been created in an absolute hurry - in just a few weeks, scores of state and district "assemblies" have been held where local leaderships have been largely hand-picked by AMLO and his family.

Like the Green Party, the PT, the Convergencia/Mocimiento Ciudadano, PANAL, and other small franchise-parties, Morena is just an extended family enterprise, in this case of AMLO. It exists only for him and his interests - not, for example, to promote a legislative agenda, engage in reform of Mexico's laws, train future legislators, etc. No, this parody of a party has been cobbled, hurled together in an absolute hurry, and is held together only as long as AMLO has absolute control of it. Already many of its "assemblies" have degenerated into shouting matches and fights between different groups that claim to be the real and most loyal of AMLO's supporters.

A party that is held together only by loyalty to one man is very brittle, and is far more likely to descend into internal chaos than one held together by a lasting, common programmatic and ideological agenda. So far there is no indication that the new Morena, in its coming national assembly, will be anything but "AMLO's party," and it will rise, and fall, with him.

Source:
AMLO convoca a asamblea nacional. El Universal, Nov. 9, 2012

Calderón: "I relieved hunger." No, you didn't.

The delusions of grandeur of Felipe Calderón have grown ever greater the past years. Given that he is only weeks away from leaving office - he has already moved out of the Los Pinos presidential residence as a gesture to the incoming president, Enrique Peña Nieto (as opposed to, say, Vicente Fox, who moved the day before) - we were only right to expect some further messianic pronunciations in these days.

The most recent, just days ago, pronounced in the first person singular:  That he greatly relieved hunger on his watch. He further declared, in all modesty, that "I learned.. that the duty of any public servant is to serve." A breathtaking enlightenment!

As for his "I relieved hunger" claim, here's an excerpt from a coming book from yours truly:

Salvador Escobedo Zoletto, head of the successful poverty-alleviating Oportunidades program, confirmed that the number of poor in Mexico had increased from 42.6 to 47.4 million in the years 2006-2008, or almost 5 million during the first third of the Calderón sexenio. Disturbingly, the number of people who had moved into the “extreme poverty” category had risen from 13.8 to 18.2 million, and the program reported increases in malnourishment and anemia. The figures were particularly shocking as they did not even reflect the full impact of the economic crisis that began in 2009 and lasted almost through 2010. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean noted that in the region, only in Mexico and Honduras, which had experienced a coup in 2009, did poverty rise; elsewhere, market-economic growth coupled with expansive social programs had made life better for ever more people. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which Mexico joined in 1994, instead criticized the Calderón government for growing inequality, lack of investment in human capital, and few social benefits, which in Mexico made up only 7 percent of income after taxes, against an OECD average of 12 percent

Source:
Alivié el dolor del hambre: FCH. El Universal, Oct. 20, 2012.

“En dos años, 4 millones 800 mil pobres más, dice Oportunidades.” Milenio, March 2, 2011
“Cae pobreza en AL.” El Universal, Nov. 30, 2011
“Aumenta en México la desigualdad social.” El Universal, Dec. 6, 2011

October suprise in Mexico's labor reform

With apologies for the cliché of an "October surprise," as the latest developments with Mexico's labor reform have absolutely nothing to do with imminent elections, but what happened when the Senate voted over the reform was in any case quite stunning. I did suggest that we might see a surprise here as well, though I was far from certain the left and right would be able to pull it off, but they did.

In short, the reform sent by president Calderón to the Chamber of deputies had language stripped out of its text that required transparency and democracy in Mexico's unions - notoriously authoritarian, corrupt, and often highly unfriendly to the average worker they claim to represent.

Yet the senate managed quite a feat: Every single one of its 128 senators appeared to vote (a rarity in itself) over reinserting this language, and return the legislation to the Chamber. Here, senators of the ideologically opposed PAN and PRD managed to amass the votes needed, with surprising allies (above all the sole senator of PANAL, the daughter of teacher union boss Elba Esther Gordillo, but also, on some sections, the usually pliant pro-PRI "Green party).

Yet here's the trick: By changing the legislation, rather than voting "yes" or "no," the senators arguably transformed the originally fast-track initiative ("preferred initiative") to merely an ordinary piece of legislation.
(they also seem to have inserted some new lines on collection bargaining, which should pretty much seal the change in character)

Already PRI leader in the Chamber Manlio Fabio Beltrones said there is therefore "no hurry" to pass the reform, again seemingly doing what the PRI has been accused of for years: Dragging its feet over any significant reform, acting as a highly irresponsible opposition party. Yet here is a golden opportunity for president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto to distance himself from the hardliners in his party, and push for the reform to be passed in the Chamber - and demonstrate that he is, as he claims, a true reformer, even when it hurts the clienteles of his own party. The fact that the weathercocks of the PVEM, always eager to suck up to power, broke with the PRI suggests something of this order may be in the works.

The next days should tell.

Source:
Ya no hay prisa para sacar reforma laboral, dice Manlio. El Universal, Oct. 26, 2012
PRI y PVEM titubearon; Panal optó por democracia. El Universal, Oct. 27, 2012

The Labor reform fight: Surprise in store next week?

The Mexican senate will vote on the labor reform next week, and the battle is truly heating up. Despite a persistent drive from the PRI to have the legislation passed just as it is - and as it was passed in the Chamber of Deputies three weeks ago- things may take a very surprising turn in the end.

My own views on the legislation are, in very general terms, that a reform is badly needed, and the original proposal from Calderón had both good and bad parts, yet unfortunately the Chamber essentially voted to remove many of the good parts - democracy and transparency within Mexico's notoriously corrupt and authoritarian PRI-linked (as well, yet to a far lesser extent, PRD-linked ones) unions - while making it far too easy to fire workers, pay starvation wages, and outsource. Yes, one may well argue that in certain instances businesses should be freer to hire and fire, and that this may be a genuine impediment to formalizing jobs. But if one does this without putting any credible social safety net in place in return, it is obvious that the reform will be too slanted towards business interests, and not the workers who, lest we forget, also create the wealth. Even so, the left will not be able to block these parts, but it should work with PAN to pass some other key pieces on union democracy.

The hope is above all that the left will  now act in unison, and avoid the embarrassing spectacle in the Chamber:

On Sept. 29, when the legislation came to a vote, despite having vowed not to undertake any "radical" actions such as storming the congress podium, a group of legislators linked to Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) still resorted to this thug tactic. A few thoughts on this:

* Using physical force to block legislation is about as undemocratic as it gets, and worthy more of blackshirt storm troopers than any political organization that purports to be left wing. No matter how much one opposes  a particular legislation, as a democratically elected legislator you simply don't use violence to stop it. This is not a case of legitimate "civil disobedience" against some authoritarian, colonial power or what not - this is using violence to promote your means when you fail to do so through the democratic channels. In this case, PRD deputies Karen Quiroga and Lourdes Amaya, linked to the "radical" IDN faction in the PRD, violently ripped the microphone from the president of the congressional mesa directiva, and was backed by a handful of other PRD, PT and MC deputies who tried to storm or "take" the congressional dais.

One the one hand, such behavior undermines the image of the Mexican left and presents it as radical, quarrelsome, thuggish, and outright anti-democratic. Even more important, in my view, is that it sets a frightening precedent that would legitimize any force - from the extreme right, for instance - to seek to block i.e. progressive legislation on the grounds that it would against the "will of the people." If the left can openly and violently defy elected democracy by thug actions, why should not the far right, or any other force, feel they have every bit as much right to do so? There is a time for "civil disobedience," yet this is absolutely not it. Love or hate the legislation, it was legitimately voted upon and passed. If you don't accept this, you don't accept democracy.

And the kicker: According to some counts, had the left actually remained united and voted as a block, it could have prevented the entire legislation from being passed in the first place! After protesting, rather than remaining for the vote - which is what these legislators are actually paid to do, that is, to vote - dozens of them simply abandoned the chamber. In addition to lackluster democratic credentials, it illustrates an utter lack of political responsibility.

Jesús Ortega, leader of the social-democratic majority faction in Mexico's largest party on the left, the PRD, noted in an op-ed,

Our "ultra leftists," who "take" tribunes, flee the debate, and who shout instead of responding with arguments, in reality despise the fight in parliament and the electoral path. They feverishly seek to be parliamentarians and when they become so instead of fighting in the battle of ideas - and fighting to win the votes - they withdraw from these, promoting precisely an extremism that, in light of the facts, is tragically useless.

Amen.

They weren't the only to blame, though:
* A handful of PAN deputies as well voted for the legislation in the plenary, even though it came as a "preferred initiative" from president Felipe Calderón, of the PAN.
* A deputy from the "radical" PT, Adolfo Orive, voted in commission against Art. 357, which included union democracy. His vote was decisive in removing this from the final text that was voted upon. Despite disingenuously claiming to have actually voted in favor - the brazenness is simply stunning - the "radical left" legislators in practice ran the errand of PRI, which virulently opposes democracy in the unions.   Afew days later he just happened to be promoted to head the sought-after commission of competitiveness, which he is utterly unqualified for. It reeks of a pay-off.
* The PRD in general backs union democracy, and also wants the government to stop funding unions, instead relying solely on membership dues. This is a Mexican twist that of course stems from the PRI's union advantage, product of its 70 years in power. The PRD also wants to reinstate language removed that regulate work conditions for miners, and prison penalty for owners that neglect worker safety.

(Interestingly, some unions, above all in the PRI-linked CTM, are already calling on the PRI's president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto to block the reform)

Yet then something interesting happened. Despite the many "leaks" in the increasingly pro-PRI Milenio that the senate would simply pass the legislation as it stands - without union democracy and transparency - a few important panistas suggested that PAN would seek to reinstate this language. Finally, PAN president Gustavo Madero confirmed this. The left has also suggested it will try to vote as a block this time. Both PAN and PRD have publicly accused the PRI of exerting enormous pressure on them to not change a comma of the legislation. If united both internally and in unison with the PAN, they have a chance of blocking the legislation, in order to halt it, reinsert the union democracy language (both PAN and the left backs this), and send it back to the Chamber, where, if united they could pass it. This would, however, require an enormous amount of discipline, and, as seen earlier, coherence. I remain cautiously optimistic that they may defy the pessimistic predictions that, come next week, they will fail again.

Source:
PRD lamenta que “tribus” de izquierda abandonaran pleno. El Universal, Sept. 30
Jesús Ortega: El extremismo: Enfermedad senil de la izquierda. Excélsiór, Oct. 2, 2012
AN insiste en incluir democracia sindical. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Alista PRD más de 150 reservas. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Proponen a Adolfo Orive para presidir Competitividad. La Jornada, Oct. 11, 2012
Chocan partidos en Senado por sindicatos.  El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Denuncia PAN presión de PRI para no tocar reforma. El Universal, Oct. 10, 2012.
PRI presiona para no mover ley laboral: PRD. El Universal, Oct. 11, 2012.
Pide CTM a EPN frenar la reforma laboral. El Universal, Oct. 12, 2012.
Hay acuerdo en Senado para cambiar ley laboral. El Universal, Oct. 18, 2012
PRI y PAN chocan por ley laboral. El Universal, Oct. 17, 2012

Calderón, visiting professor at Harvard

According to a political gossip column in El Universal, soon-to-be ex president Felipe Calderón's next residence - the subject of much speculation these days - will indeed be outside of Mexico, specifically in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He will give lectures as visiting professor at Harvard.

He holds himself a master's degree in public administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, from as recently as 2000.

If Calderón will indeed end up teaching at Harvard, one can safely assume that this will also entailing beefing up campus security.

Source:
Bajo Reserva. El Universal, Oct. 20, 2012

Calderon "blind" to torture, new Amnesty report

Amnesty International's new report on Mexico is tough reading for Mexico's president. In criticizing his administration's human rights policy, the report concludes,

The government of Felipe Calderón has prioritised public security and combating organize crime, but this has in effect resulted in turning a blind eye to widespread human right violations.

In particular, the human rights group criticizes the Calderón administration's passivity toward "endemic" torture carried out by security forces against detainees, which has increased drastically the past years.

See the press release here, and the report, in pdf form, here,

Source:
Known abusers, but victims ignored: Torture and ill-treatment in Mexico. Amnesty International, 2012

AMLO on violence

AMLO on violence:

I respect highly those who argue that only through armed force can one achieve the changes the country needs, but I do not share this. 

He also rejected to sit down for any talks with president-elect  Enrique Peña Nieto, and advised others to reject dialogue as well.

Noted.

Source:
AMLO rechaza vía armada para cambio. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012

In Zapata's land, the left's first governor

It may be a small state - it is only beat by Tlaxcala in being Mexico's smallest, and less than 2 million reside there - but for the left, winning the state of Morelos was very important for many reasons beyond the obvious. There is for sure the historical backdrop: Morelos was the land of the great Emiliano Zapata, who launched his agrarian revolutionary movement from the state and died there after a 1919 ambush.

With the left's victory in Morelos, it also won a state it has never held before. The state had already seen alternation in power - PAN ran it from 2000 until recently, in two generally terrible administrations. It is now the left's turn to show it can do better.

A few days ago, Graco Ramírez Garrido Abreu, a veteran on the left and a PRD founder in 1989, finally assumed as governor. While he was at one point the man who recruited AMLO to the PRD - AMLO only ditched the PRI when he failed to become its Tabasco governor candidate - the relationship between "Graco," as he is often referred to, and AMLO is quite abysmal, especially since AMLO's hysterical mobilizations against an imagined privatization of PEMEX in 2008.

With Graco's call for dialogue with Mexico's soon-to-be president, Enrique Peña Nieto - repeated in his inauguration speech - it was hardly a surprise that AMLO did not show up. PRD founder Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas did.

First on his agenda seems to be to carry out what he often brought up during the campaign: A purge of the state's police forces, many of whom are generally regarded to be turning a blind eye, to say the least, to the drug "cartels" * in the state. Next, to "certify" a new force, which he promises to do by the end of 2012.

(Another point: The left governs Mexico City, Morelos, nearby Guerrero, Oaxaca, and finally Tabasco (AMLO loyalist  Arturo Núñez). The geographic concentration is notable in itself , but for governance and inter-state cooperation it may also be a boon. Expect some major pronunciations here soon).


Source:
Graco Ramírez plantea diálogo con Peña Nieto. El Universal, Oct. 2, 2012
Certificar policías este año, ofrece Graco. El Universal, Oct. 10, 2012

* I am happy to note The Economist's style change to put "cartels" in quotation marks. As the news publication duly notes, the murderous drug gangs are hardly price-fixing cartels, but bloody competitors. I think that's a pretty good compromise between keeping a flawed term that is nevertheless in very common use, yet still noting its incorrect usage.

PAN, now with code of ethics

This is just too funny: Barely a few weeks before the PAN will leave the federal government, beat by the old ruling party it ousted in 2000, the rightwing party has suddenly pronounced a new ethics code that aims to set up the "complete autonomy" of the party vis-a-vis the federal government.

According to the document,

The structures of governance should not be confused with the party structures. The permanent temptation of reproducing the model of the party of the state should be rejected institutionally. 

Yes, it is a hell lot easier to discover that one's party should be autonomous of the government - and not merely reproducing the vices of the PRI, where the party and the state were most often inseparable - just as you are about to leave.

It would ring a lot less hollow if the PAN - which copied so many of PRI's nefarious practices and in the end almost fully corrupted its once-vaunted party organization - would have attempted any such move during any one of the twelve years it actually held national power.

Source:
Panistas se imponen código de ética. El Universal, Oct. 7, 2012

Mexico 2006 ballots finally to be destroyed

With the final decision of IFE, Mexico's institute responsible for organizing elections, to destroy what remains of the ballots used in Mexico's contentious 2006 election, that saga seems to be coming to an end.

IFE's general council also agreed to destroy the 2012 ballots.

A couple of years after the fraudulent 1988 election, PRI and PAN conspired, following a deal with Carlos Salinas and Diego Fernández de Cevallos, Diego, to have the ballots burned so as to remove forever any possibility of finally knowing the extent of the fraud that brought Salinas to power.

Yet one should be very careful with any analogies to 2006 here. In 1988, all opposition candidates claimed that fraud had taken place, and much evidence surfaced to back the claim. After July 2, 2006, AMLO was the sole candidate to claim fraud took place - as he claimed in 2012 as well. Yet not one single investigation has uncovered the slightest evidence that AMLO won more votes than Calderón, or that any massive fraurd took place where ballots were altered in any systematic way favoring the PAN candidate.

It is understandable that this is still a touchy issue for many, especially those individuals and organizations who have repeatedly sought access to the 2006 ballots. Yet IFE has pretty good reasons for wanting them burned. The institute is, for sure, required by law to dispose of electoral material after the final verdict has been passed on an election, but other motives are quite mundane: Money. It has so far cost the institute more than half a billion pesos to store them, and half a billion pesos more for the army to store them.

And the clincher: Despite the billion pesos spent, much of the ballots are already so rotten and decayed that they are useless in any case.

But the larger point should not be forgotten: Even if much of the ballots were not already destroyed, there is no reason to think that any full recount would alter the result in any significant way.
It seems to me that it is therefore time to let go.

Source:
Acuerda el IFE eliminar boletas. El Universal, Oct. 4, 2012

PAN party may slash membership in half

Mexico's rightwing party the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), is doing exactly what its left counterpart the PRD undertook last year: A purge of its party rolls, long outdated and bloated, and prone to manipulation. It's about time.

The party's devastating internal fights over national candidacies ahead of the July 1, 2012 federal election exposed a party that is only a shadow of its former self: Massive corruption, vote-buying, coercion, and a rash of truly indigestible candidates, whose incompetence and corruption should ban then from even serving as ticket takers at the local movie theater, let alone national lawmakers.

While he turned a blind eye to much of this, in order to at least try to curb the practices of clientelism and vote-buying, PAN leader Gustavo Madero, is launching a campaign where members will have to reaffirm their membership, and where the burden thus falls on the individual member to do so: Prove that you exist and that you are an active member so that we know you're real -and the burden of proof falls on the member, who will have to appear in person with party and voter credentials at their local office, or else.

Jan. 6, 2012, the party will publish its "updated" membership rolls. Madero suggested its membership rolls may well be cut in half. It will be very interesting to see what states these "ghost members" will particularly appear in. My money is on Veracruz and Nuevo León in particular

Source:
Inicia PAN depuración de padrón de afiliados. El Universal, Oct. 1, 2012
AN puede reducir 50% su padrón. El Universal, Oct. 2, 2012

The plagiarizing senator with no shame

This is just plain embarrassing, and should be grounds for disqualification for even being considered a national political candidate, let alone for a senate seat: Plagiarism in your academic thesis.

But alas, PAN still decided to nominate María del Pilar Ortega Martínez as a suplente, or alternate/substitute candidate, as it were for the late Alonso Lujambio, which means she was just "promoted" to occupy his senate seat for the remainder of the 6-year term, which has just started.

The short story: Ortega Martínez was in 2008 revealed to have handed in a thesis for Harvard University, no less, that was simply lifted from the works of others, and to boot put together in final form by her own staff! Reportedly  dr. Kelly Gallagher of Harvard as a consequence sought to have her expelled from the university. I wonder what kind of interventions took place behind the scenes to protect the then-federal deputy.

It speaks to just how low the conservative PAN has sunk when it comes to the quality of their nominations for national office.

Here's a photo of the now-Senator. Sin vergüenza!

SPD Noticias

Source:
Suplente de Lujambio “plagió” en Harvard. El Universal, Sept. 26, 2012

Tribunal confirms last disputed Mexico City delegations

Mexico's highest electoral court TEPJF confirmed yesterday earlier verdicts of Mexico City's local tribunal: PRD retains its victory in Miguel Hidalgo, while PRI/PVEM won the delegation Cuajimalpa.

PRD was also close to winning Cuajimalpa, while it was also competitive in Benito Juárez, the only two delegations not run by the party after the 2012 local elections, which happened at the same day as the national election

The left's dominance in Mexico City, where it also has the mayor, is illustrated by this graphic over the city's 16 delegations: One for PAN, one for PRI, and 14 for the PRD.



Source:
Cuajimalpa al PRI; M. Hidalgo al PRD. El Universal, Sept. 27, 2012

Mexico's labor reform... screeches to a halt

Some quite interesting dynamics regarding president Calderón's proposed Labor Reform / Reforma laboral recently.

A few weeks ago, Calderón sent the reform to the Chamber of Deputies using the "preferred initiative" clause, which given changes to the Constitution a few months ago meant Congress had to act on it before the end of this month, or else it would pass automatically - essentially a "fast-track" provision.

It did. El Universal reports today that the labor reform has come to a screeching halt, where already key provisions have been changed or taken out by the the receiving commission.
Here's a nice graphic on the exact changes, so far:



The PAN has strongly backed the reform, the PRD and other left forces strongly opposed it, with the PRI quite split. PRD and PRI have also found positive aspects of the reform, though they certainly do not agree on what those are.

The PRD agreed to items such as democracy, accountability, and transparency within unions - a rarity in Mexico - but charged it a smokescreen to cover up the reform's real pro-business agenda. Indeed, it is a key component of the reform to loosen labor regulations, making it easier to hire and fire, but it is far from clear what this entails. Reuters noted the reform seeks to "often Mexico's antiquated labor laws and force its trade unions to become more transparent," though this reads a bit more like a government press release than an analysis of the reform. I have yet to find the full proposal online to look at it more closely.

The business council, the CCE, said it approved of the reform "without reservations" but also said it supported looking at proposals from the PRD.

AMLO claimed the reform was part of a deal between Calderón and Peña Nieto, but as usual whenever AMLO makes a declaration, he has little factual evidence for anything. It sure may be, though - and the interesting part is not so much that Peña Nieto did indeed back the reform, but that big sectors of the PRI, including the group around Manlio Fabio Beltrones, opposed sections of it on union transparency, exactly as they know well that these initiatives could greatly undermine PRI strength in the far from democratic unions still attached to the party. PRI unions have, for sure, greatly opposed the reform.

Why did Did Peña Nieto back it openly if he knew PRI would likely oppose it? Is he more of a reformist than imagined, or was it merely a ploy to buy some cover? It will in any case be very interesting to see how the relations will develop between the incoming president and his party, which is a far more heterogeneous coalition than they were last time the PRI held power, 1994-2000.

As for his initiatives, Peña Nieto may find that he will also have a formidable opponent in Congress in his very own party.

Source:
Sindicatos rechazan someterse a auditoría. El Universal, Sept. 3, 2012
PRD alista cambios a reforma laboral. El Universal, Sept. 19, 2012
Empresarios impulsan aval a iniciativa de FCH. El Universal, Sept. 18, 2012
PRD no se levantará de mesa de negociación. El Universal, Sept. 21, 2012
Oposición rechaza la reforma laboral. El Universal, Sept. 18, 2012
Iniciativa traerá frustración y resentimiento: AMLO. El Universal, Sept. 20, 2012
Mexico's Pena Nieto optimistic on labor reform bill. Reuters, Sept. 19, 2012

Vargas Llosa: No return of "perfect dictatorship"

Noted:

Mario Vargas Llosa, who after deeming the PRI regime a "perfect dictatorship" on live national television in 1990 was kicked out of Mexico the very next day, said recently he does not see PRI's return to national power in the form of president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto as a return to said "perfect dictatorship."

The Peruvian (and nationalized Spaniard) writer said he believed PRI would now "play in the diversity of democracy."

He also denounced Calderón's "drug war" as insensata, meaning foolish or even insane, and said he hoped Peña Nieto would change what he termed a strategy of repression:

We must look for alternative measures, such as those being proposed by many. Experiment with legalization, and instead of spending the huge sums on drug trafficking instead invest them in prevention, healing, and rehabilitation

Amen.

Source:
Vargas Llosa descarta regreso de la “dictadura perfecta”. El Universal, Sept. 19, 2012

PAN makes peace with Enrique Peña Nieto

What a big move from the heady days after the July 1, 2012 election, when PAN president Gustavo Madero  claimed there was so much vote buying in the election that PRI winner Enrique Peña Nieto would never be a "legitimate" president, even if "legal."

Last week, 7 PAN governors and 2 governors-elect, as well as Madero himself, met with and rallied around the PRI president-elect, promising to back key initiatives on "shared initiatives."

Madero said PAN would back any "democratizing and modernizing" projects Peña Nieto might launch once in power.

For the PAN at least, whatever happened on July 1, 2012 - we're unlikely to know any time soon, or perhaps at all, given the decision of Mexico's electoral tribunal not to investigate serious claims of vote buying - is long since forgotten.

Source:
Gobernadores de AN dan respaldo a Peña. El Universal, Sept. 13, 2012

On AMLO's departure from the PRD

I'd like to share a few thoughts on the biggest story on the Mexican left these days.

AMLO's departure from the PRD, long in the making, is clearly dramatic for the Mexican left: Any two-time presidential candidate leaving his or her party would be noteworthy in itself, but even more so as AMLO is clearly bent on creating a new, utterly personal party, with which he of course intends to go for 2018 in a third run adn thus compete with the party he was once a founding member of, the PRD. A third presidential run is of course hardly unheard of: Lula ran four times before winning, and so did Salvador Allende in Chile, though notably both were men of their parties, and above all respected the institutional framework within which they were competing. Did any of them ever falsely claim fraud or to have won, without a shred of evidence, proclaim themselves "legitimate" presidents, or reject the democratic institutions of their country, be it elections, electoral courts, or the supreme court?

But there is a larger point to be made, regarding converting AMLO's Morena movement into a party. His spokespersons, and AMLO himself, reiterate that there will in the next months be "consultations" with the base regarding turning Morena into a party or not. It is hard to take this too seriously: For one, "consultations" AMLO-style is text-book plebescitarian, "asking" his followers whether they agree with a decision he has taken long ago. A personal observation: I recall vividly being at the Zócalo in 2011 at the rally where AMLO, as he later claimed, "asked" his followers to go for the 2012 nomination or not, and it was anything but a consultation ("Are we going for 2012? Yeeees... Louder, are we going for 2012? YEEEEES....!). Second, I have little doubt that AMLO wants to turn Morena into a party. He has announced he will hold, from Oct. 10 to Nov. 11, 32 state congresses, and then one national congress Nov. 19-20. What's the hurry? Quite obvious: In order to be allowed to run on the new party's label in 2018, according to the reformed Mexican electoral code, it will need to have been officially formed by this fall.

It is worth stopping to ponder how utterly personalistic AMLO's project is, as there simply has been nothing like this happening on the left in modern times. While Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas contemplated leaving the PRD when he lost the 2006 nomination to AMLO, he in the end did not. Yet AMLO, despite having been PRD's candidate in 2006 and 2012, knows he will not get the candidacy a third time, and therefore has finally split from his old party, like he in turn bolted from the PRI when he failed to get its nomination to be governor of Tabasco. All the "PRI has lost its way, therefore I leave" rhetoric even from that time must be countered with a heavy dose of cynicism: AMLO, like so many others, left the PRI because it did not fit with his personal ambitions.

His decision to form a new party makes it again fully clear how AMLO cares about one project: His own. Elsewhere, in other parties, candidates will fight over positions and some will of course bolt their own party, but on the political left, most nonetheless agree that the party - that is, the project of the party, its political program and plans of action - is far more important than the ambitions of just one man. If AMLO truly cared about any political project beyond his own, he would of course concentrate on using his political capital to strengthen a broader political project with a chance of winning in 2018, with a goal to implement a progressive agenda and not to insist that only AMLO would be capable of doing this. But as these events make abundantly clear, he has no interest in any project that is not led by himself. It is either utterly egoistic, wholly messianic, or both: "No one but me can bring about the change, no one!"

And when his party suggested it would not follow his commands without objection - such as not accepting the election victory of Enrique Peña Nieto, which Morena has declared it will never do - then rather than bending to the party's will, AMLO has finally taken the logical step: If you can't control it, leave it.

His decision will cause enormous turmoil and fluidity on the Mexican left and likely hurt it greatly in the short term, such as upcoming state contests and the 2015 midterms. There is of course also the danger that the  that the left will split in 2018, should AMLO break his earlier promise not to run (he said in 2011 that 2012 would be his last, "out of dignity," and also, as laughable as it appears now, some also believed him when he declared he would retire should he lose this summer). Nonetheless, in the long run, I think AMLO's departure from the PRD, as Marcelo Ebrard characterized it, was not only "predictable and logical," but will also in the end be positive for the Mexican left. As PRD president Zambrano noted, "The PRD is an institution that is much strong than persons and personalities." That includes Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Source:
Creará AMLO partido; deja frente de izquierda. El Universal, Sept. 10, 2012
Es incongruente, afirman PAN y PRI. El Universal, Sept. 10, 2012
AMLO: sin ruptura, dejo el Movimiento Ciudadano. La Jornada, Sept. 10, 2012
Mensaje íntegro de Andrés Manuel López Obrador en el Zócalo. La Jornada, Sept. 10, 2012
AMLO pone en dilema a la izquierda. El Universal, Sept. 11, 2012
Pide Ebrard crear frente de oposición. El Universal, Sept. 14, 2012
Zambrano descarta “fuga” de militantes. El Universal, Sept. 11, 2012
Salida de AMLO no es una sorpresa: NI. El Universal, Sept. 14, 2012

AMLO leaves party politics

At a rally in the downtown Zócalo today, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) - who does not recognize the win of Enrique Peña Nieto in the 2012 presidential election, nor accept the verdict of Mexico's electoral tribunal confirming this - announced he will separate himself from the parties that carried his presidential candidacy, namely the PRD, PT, and MC. This is, then, a separation from party politics, though he may next turn his social movement MORENA into a party in near future:

In this new stage of my life, I will dedicate all my imagination and work to the cause of the transformation of Mexico. I will do this from the space that MORENA represents, and therefore separate myself from the parties of the Movimiento Progresista [the name of the 2012 coalition].

This is not a rupture; I leave on the best terms. I separate myself from the  the progressive parties with my deepest thanks to their leaders and activists.

Yesterday, the left's governors-elect and PRD, the largest party on the left, declared they will accept Enrique Peña Nieto's victory, however grudgingly - which clearly distinguished them from AMLO. There is rarely such a thing as a coincidence in politics.

Source:
Anuncia AMLO su separación de las izquierdas. Milenio online, Sept. 9, 2012
Gobernadores de izquierda reconocen el triunfo de Peña. El Universal, Sept. 8, 2012

Peña Nieto's transition team - where's the change?

Here's a graphic of Enrique Peña Nieto's transition team:

Forty-six men, 8 women. A couple of analysts have noted the "surprises" of Rosario Robles and Roberto Campa, but I see absolutely nothing either new or interesting or noteworthy of this team, many of whom are likely to join his government. Campa belongs to Elba Esther Gordillo, and Robles is an utter opportunist, a former "radical" leftwing maoist who even became head of the PRD until kicked out after nearly destroying the party by contracting a huge amount of debt, and then allowing her lover to try to blackmail the party. She was part of the plot to block AMLO from running in 2006 with the videoscandals, and has done nothing of importance since then.

The others are standard-fare priístas, most of them representative of the "old" PRI as much as the "new" to which Peña Nieto claimed to belong.

Where's the promised change, plurality, innovation, bold signals? Nothing of that kind discerned at least in Peña Nieto's transition team; let's see how the eventual government will look like in December.


Peña Nieto nombra equipo de transición. El Universal, Sept. 6, 2012.
Sorprende equipo de Peña: expertos. El Universal,  Sept. 6, 2012.
Robles entra al primer círculo. El Universal,  Sept. 5, 2012.

Cowardice in Michocán religious conflict

There seems to be no end to the cowardice, incompetence, and partiality of the PRI government of Michoacán. Nominally lead by Governor Fausto Vallejo Figueroa but given his rapidly deteriorating health (rumors of his coming death are likely not exaggerated) in practice in the hands of secretary Jesús Reyna García, the government is doing the bare minimum to avoid violating the federal constitution while not touching a hair on the head of the Taliban-like cult psychopaths of Nueva Jerusalén, who attack formal schooling, modern music, radio, TV, and internet - and to boot predicted, falsely as it were, that the world would end in 2000.

Instead of arresting the thugs - they've raped children, pelted opponents with rocks, and trashed a school - the PRI government is relocating those who oppose them, that is, those who want their children to attend a secular government school.

Reyna García is truly a man of no shame, instead attacking their victims: Against the recommendation of the state's human rights commission, he is instead forging ahead with a plan to force those opposed to the cult to leave, including forcing the children to attend school elsewhere. When the parents objected that this would mean their children would cross a dangerous river current just to get to school - their previous one was burnt down right before the start of the school year - Reyna García called them "liars," suggesting it was just a little creek and that they had demanded themselves to be relocated. That is a complete, fabricated lie.

Given the state government's incapacity and clear lack of will to do anything -  Reyna García notoriously designated the conflict as one between "power factions" - the children of parents opposed to the cult have now gone three weeks without school


What support from their elected officials!

Prevén clases el lunes en Nueva Jerusalén. El Universal, Sept. 6, 2012
Proponen reubicar en Nueva Jerusalén. El Universal, Sept. 5, 2012

What's next for Ebrard: The UN and Socialist International

Marcelo Ebrard, who in December will step down after six largely highly successful years as Mexico City mayor, already has a new gig lined up: The United Nations' Global Network of Safer Cities program, a recognition of his tenure where he kept organized crime at bay. From the UN program's Web site:

The Safer Cities Programme was launched in 1996 to address urban violence by developing a prevention strategy at city level

The position is from 2012 to 2016. Yet he has already started a parallel job that will end two years later in 2018: His second attempt at winning the left's nomination for its presidential candidate in 2018, when Enrique Peña Nieto steps down. He will very likely need to wrest that from AMLO in what would be his third attempt.

Oh, and he will also be vice president of the Socialist International, another recognition of his work of making Mexico City also the most socially liberal (in laws, that is) city in Latin America. He follows after PRD founder Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who was also vice president of the SI, and who is now moreover an honorary vice president of the organization of left-leaning parties of the world.

Source:
Encarga la ONU comité a Ebrard. El Universal, Sept. 4, 2012
Nombran a Ebrard vicepresidente de la Internacional Socialista. Proceso Online, Aug. 31, 2012

AMLO's tweet

During the election campaign, AMLO vowed to retire from politics - to go to La Chingada, or his Chiapas ranch - should he not win the election. Months earlier, he also declared that 2012 would be his last election, "out of dignity." Yet despite Thursday's ruling from the TEPJF electoral court - unanimous, and moreover unappealable - he tweeted yesterday, 

Attentive warning: I'm going to retire when the country belongs to everyone, not the 30 potentates. When we realize the fine ideal of justice.

Few will likely remain surprised of this turn-about or lack of memory. AMLO will not retire, and he will do all he can to run in 2018 for a third bid. The battle is already on.

Mexico's new Senate head is embarrasing

Ernesto Cordero Arroyo has not held a single elective office in his life. No municipal presidency, mayorship, governorship, and no legislative office - not even as a state legislator, let alone federal deputy. He was nonetheless put on the first spot on the proportional representation list for the Senate, which guaranteed him a spot in Mexico's highest legislative chamber without having to campaign for his seat. It was clearly a pay-off from Calderón, who had promoted him as his successor for president, though that primary was in the end won by the hapless Josefina Vázquez Mota.

Yet to simply award an ultra-loyalist with zero legislative experience a senatorship is one thing; to make him head of the Senate(!) is another. Yes, amazingly enough, Cordero - who was one of the most arrogant, venomous, and politically tone-deaf members of Calderón's cabinet - will now preside the Senate the coming year,in addition to heading the PAN's senate group.

His inexperience and record of personal unsuitability bodes ill for legislative compromises. More immediately, his appointment is simply pathetic and embarrassing.

Source:
Se instala la 62 Legislatura en el Senado; Cordero rinde protesta. La Jornada, Aug. 30, 2012

PRI mayor leaves Acapulco in shambles

Manuel Añorve Baños was PRI mayor of Acapulco from 2009 until March 2012, when he stepped down to compete for a seat in the national Chamber of Deputies. He also competed unsuccessfully for the Guerrero governorship, and judging by his disastrous administration in the city of Acapulco, Guerrero residents can be quite happy that Añorve is not their leader.

The left won Acapulco in the July elections, but already now it has been revealed they will inherit a debt of at least 1.5 billion pesos. Worse still in the short run, already now 5,000 city employees are left without pay, as Añorve spent all the money set aside for them.

It's a strange world where an utterly incompetent mayor manages to be rewarded with a seat at the national congress, when his incompetence should instead have served to remove him from politics and public administration altogether. Yet within the PRI, he was in practice promoted.

Hopefully he will do less damage as a federal deputy for the PRI than as mayor of Acacpulco.

Source:
Acapulco: crisis de deuda mantiene sin salarios a 5 mil empleados municipales. La Jornada, Sept. 1, 2012.

Why athletes should perhaps not be made senators

I admit I know little about Ana Gabriela Guevara Espinoza, a retired Mexican athlete who was made a candidate for senator for the PT. She may have had some political experience, but a recent faux pax certainly suggests that she knows little of the functioning of politics - and that maybe making famous athlete into national politicians overnight may not always be such a bright idea in general:

When the senator-elect was to appear in the Senate for her swearing in, she was nowhere to be found: Instead, Guevara wandered around confused in San Lázaro, seat of the Chamber of Deputies. When someone alerted her to her mistaken location, she made a run for the exit and in the end apparently made it to the Senate.

Is an athlete who doesn't seem to know which of Mexico's two legislative chambers she belongs to really suited to be one of Mexico's 128 Senators? Could not even one of her staffers, advisers, friends, party comrades, anyone, find out about the procedure beforehand?

Truly embarrassing.

Source:
Focos rojos con Washington. El Universal, Aug. 31, 2012

Where in the world is Tomás Yarrington?

He is wanted not just in Mexico, but in 190 countries across the globe: The Mexican government has asked Interpol to arrest former PRI governor of Tamaulipas (1999-2005), Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, for his alleged involvement with the Gulf Cartel in the state.

No one has seen the fugitive governor since a Mexican judge yesterday issued the arrest warrant. Don't expect him to appear in person voluntarily to answer the charges. What I find even more interesting is if - or when - another likely next arrest warrant for another ex-PRI governor will be issued: Yarrington's successor, Eugenio Hernández Flores.

Source:
“Firme, indagatoria contra Yarrington”. El Universal, Aug. 30, 2012
Mexico judge orders arrest of ex-Governor Yarrington. BBC News, Aug. 29, 2012

Electoral court rejects annulling Mexico 2012 election

A commission of Mexico's TEPJF electoral court tasked with qualifying the 2012 presidential election announced that it proposes to reject as unfounded the complaints of Movimiento Progresista, the electoral coalition behind Andrés Manuel López Obrador's candidacy, where it demanded the annulment of the election, alleging overspending, undue media coverage,  custom-made fake polling, and other irregularities

Next, the TEPJF will actually vote on the recommendation tomorrow, and next the court will actually vote to ratify (and theoretically, to not) the PRI's victory, but in essence this all but ensures that Enrique Peña Nieto will sometime in the next few days be declared president-elect of Mexico.

Source:
Rechazan magistrados todas las quejas de la izquierda. La Jornada, Aug. 29, 2012
Desecha Trife impugnación. El Universal, Aug. 29, 2012

World attention for christian cult psychopaths in Michoacán

The psychopathic and criminal thugs of  Nueva Jerusalén, in Turicato municpality in Michoacán, are finally getting international attention:

A video from CNN here.
From the BBC, here.

The gutless PRI governor of the state, Fausto Vallejo Figueroa, calls for dialogue with the violent cultists, who destroy schools and pelt children with rocks, and have in the past been involved in rape and abuse scandals of their own brainwashed flock. There seems to be little point in dialogue at this point, yet one likely reason why Vallejo is not moving to arrest the leaders, as he should, is that the town has faithfully, with irony intended, voted PRI since it gained control in the 1970s.


Source:
Mexico cult eyes 'evil' secular schools. CNN, Aug. 23, 2012
Mexico row as religious sect blocks schooling access. BBC World News, Aug. 23, 2012

AMLO's increasingly bizarre denunciations

I admit I am predisposed to more than a small dose of skepticim to many of the claims of Movimiento Progresista over fraud or other irregularities in the 2012 elections, given that a lot of strong words and denunciations have been hurled the past weeks but very little substantive evidence has appeared.

The behavior of AMLO's campaign coordinator Ricardo Monreal leaves much to be desired in this regard, and I am putting this mildly. He has been shooting off very serious allegations that for sure could be true, but for which he has presented not an iota of concrete evidence.

His recent antics is his most spectacular so far - a law of diminishing returns also applies to fraud accusations, to be sure:

That Agustín Carstens, head of Mexico's central bank, has falsified a document in order to cover up illegal transfer of money to a bank account Monreal claims was used by the PRI campaign. He also has charged him with money laundering and other financial crimes, and said he would go to SIEDO, or the organized crime unit of the attorney general, in order to denounce all this, tomorrow.

I would be very surprised if he has anything at all substantive. Despite supposedly being a lawyer by training, Monreal has at times demonstrated a lack of knowledge of even basic legal and political concepts, in the process discrediting the left's cause even further.

AMLO, however, seems fully convinced of the charges, claiming in his Twitter account that  "The Bank of Mexico altered the electronic receipt of a transfer of money to protect Videgaray," a reference to Peña Nieto's campaign manager Luis Videgaray.

Monreal, whom AMLO recruited from the PRI to become PRD governor (he since switched to PT and then MC), is a man who has AMLO's full confidence. Monreal better have something substantive this time, as both he and his boss face complete ridicule if their charge will also be left unsubstantiated.

Source:
Monreal va contra Banxico. El Universal, Aug. 26, 2012

Disturbing violence against political actors in Oaxaca

In Juchitán de Zaragoza municipality in Oaxaca, a disturbing episode of violence against legitimate political actors: The party headquarters of the Partido del Trabajo or Workers Party (PT) wee attacked by two masked gunmen just as the party leadership held a meeting with the campesino/peasant organization Unión Campesina de Oaxaca. One attendee was murdered and another injured in the hail of bullets

None have been apprehended for this atrocity, which is moreover an attack on democracy.

Source:
Deja ataque al PT en Oaxaca un muerto. El Universal, Aug. 26, 2012

Religious whacks again attack education

Again the religious whacks in Nueva Jerusalén, Michoacán, are attacking the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Mexican children for an education, and again the PRI government of Fausto Vallejo Figueroa is doing nothing to stop them:

For two consecutive days, the pederast-rapist cult led by the "bishop" Martin de Tours has blcoked children in the indigenous community from going to school. Why? Because they don't believe in education, that's why. And as it usually goes with strongly religious individuals or cults, they are not merely content with following their own commandments , but will do everything they can to impose them on others - like it or not. Hence, with the start of the school year, they are now depriving children who are not member of the cult and whose parents want nothing to do with it, from learning.

Governor Fausto Vallejo Figueroa has done nothing so far to arrest these psychopaths, and any action does not look very forthcoming, at least judging from the very cowardly and highly erroneous recent statement from the Secretary of Government Jesús Reyna García,(second in command after the governor): It is a "religious disagreement" that has "nothing to do with education. Of course it has everything to do with education. From 1973 to 2007 there was no school or even health clinic in the village, and the right to education - an an alternative viewpoint to the cultists - is central here.

What political cowardice - kowtowing to a community that also just happens to be ultra-priísta.

Source:
Se recrudece el conficto en la comunidad Nueva Jerusalén; impiden regreso a clases. La Jornada, Aug. 21
Nueva Jerusalén: otra vez impiden inicio de clases. El Universal, Aug. 22, 2012

Range of IFE verdicts against the left

* IFE rejected the left's request to push forward an audit the presidential campaign. Instead it will be held at a much later point, and certainly after the inauguration.

* Against the protests of IFE councilor Alfredo Figueroa, IFE voted 8-1 to exonerate Peña Nieto and Televisa from any accusations of illegal or covert campaign in favor of the PRI candidate, despite the exposes of the newspaper The Guardian of a pact between the newscaster and PRI to actively promote his candidacy. No Televisa employee was asked to testify. Figueroa noted, "It is obvious that no investigation was done in order to get closer to the elements of this case."

*IFE fined the left's Movimiento Progresista 1.5 million pesos over an ad called "Thousands of proofs" deeming it injurious to PRI and Peña Nieto. Days earlier it had rejected any fine and allowed it in the name of free speech. Alfredo Figueroa, Lorenzo Córdova and Benito Nacif voted against; council president Leonardo Valdés and the remaining councilors voted in favor. Valdés has particularly the past year increasingly appeared unfriendly to the PRD, to put it mildly, which likely regrets its original backing of him to become IFE president.

Together, the incidents have led PRD leader Zambrano to suggest outright that IFE favors the PRI.

Source:
Inconforma a la izquierda decisión del IFE. La Jornada, Aug. 15, 2012
Zambrano: IFE favorece al PRI. El Universal, Aug. 18, 2012
Exculpa el IFE a Peña Nieto y Televisa por campaña encubierta. La Jornada, Aug. 17, 2012
El instituto multa con casi millón y medio al Movimiento Progresista.  La Jornada, Aug. 17, 2012

Left summit says it will respect election tribunal ruling

A summit of leftwing forces in Mexico - legislators of the PRD, MC, PT, and notably sitting and newly elected governors of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Tabasco, Morelos, and Mexico - proclaimed at its summit Cumbre de la izquierda mexicana in Guerrero that it will seek unity to promote leftwing causes in Congress as well as through its 4 governors and Chief of the Federal District/Mexico City mayor in a broad coalition.

It also notably stated it will respect the upcoming verdict from the TEPJF, Mexico's electoral tribunal, on the 2012 presidential elections. More notably still, the left's 2012 candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) did not appear at the event.

It also vowed to promote a left agenda that will reject abrogation of worker rights, privatize the PEMEX oil company, or raise VAT on foods and medicines. Little was mentioned, it seems of a more constructive or propositive program: Its manifesto, however welcome for the left as a broad statement of purpose, still reads nonetheless primarily as a reactive agenda.

Ebrard: izquierda impulsará consensos. El Universal, Aug. 16, 2012
El TEPJF debe hacer valer la ley y acataremos su fallo. La Jornada, Aug. 16, 2012
Seguirá la lucha tras el fallo del Tribunal: PRD. El Universal, Aug. 17, 2012
Luchar para devolver la banda de 2.5 a MVS, acuerda la izquierda. La Jornada, Aug. 17, 2012

Dramatic turn in Mexico media scandal: MVSgate

This is truly preposterous: The director of the MVS Comunicaciones media group, whose TV concession provides a rare alternative to Mexico's electronic media duopoly dominated by the infamous Televisa and TV Azteca, has confirmed what many has suspected: The PAN government of  Felipe Calderón has launched a political attack on the station.

The government's decision to put up MVS's concession claiming that it is under-utilizing its 2.5 GHz bandwidth appears only to have been an excuse, as MVS head Joaquín Vargas Guajardo confirmed that the government told him its license would only be renewed if he fired the renowned investigative journalist Carmen Aristegui, as well as to desist from an earlier MVS complaint against a proposed Televisa purchase of Iusacell, a cell phone provider.

This hit the front pages of El Universal today. With Vargas' claim, the MVS scandal - let's just call it MVSgate - drastically deepens. According to Vargas, Javier Lozano, then federal secretary of work, told him, "we've found that you're 2.5 GHz project has merit, but if you rehire that journalist, your project is fucked and you can forget about this government until its last day."

What a way to go out for Calderón: Political persecution of the media.

Source:
Se agrava crisis por la banda ancha. El Universal, Aug. 16, 2012

Mexico's new congressional leaders

With the election today of PRD's new coordinators, all three major parties in Mexico have now chosen their congressional leaders for the foreseeable future (up to three years for the Chamber of Deputies, and six for the Senate).

PAN: For the Senate, Calderón managed to install the inept Ernesto Cordero as coordinator of the PAN's legislative group. Yet for Chamber leader, PAN chose Luis Alberto Villarreal, ex-mayor of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, who is loyal to PAN leader Gustavo Madero, in conflict with Calderón over control of the party. One for each one.

For PRI, its former Senate coordinator Manlio Fabio Beltrones will now take on that role in the Chamber, while Emilio Gamboa Patrón will lead the PRI's Senate group - he was coordinator for its Chamber group 2006-9, and after that became head of CNOP, PRI's "popular sector."
Say what you will about Beltrones and Gamboa, but the "New PRI" they ain't.

For PRD, the Nueva Izquierda social-democratic faction critical of AMLO won control of the Senate group, with Miguel Barbosa Huerta. They notably also won control of the Chamber coordinator, with ex-senator  and ex-candidate of Michoacán governor Silvano Aureoles Conejo, who although he is a member of another party current (Foro Nuevo Sol) is regarded as very close to NI.

Don't expect PRD's new coordinators to follow any renewed calls for "legislative strikes," which AMLO so often proclaimed in 2007-9.

Source:
Elige PRI a coordinadores en el Congreso. El Universal, Aug. 9, 2012
PAN: Cordero y Villarreal, coordinadores en Congreso. El Universal, Aug. 14, 2012
Lanzan a “matador” al ruedo de San Lázaro. El Universal, Aug. 14, 2012
Define PRD jefes de bancadas. El Universal, Aug. 15, 2012

Calderón faces PAN after the defeat

Calderón faced the PAN's national council this weekend, where a low-key but nonetheless intensive  fight is playing out over the future of the party. In essence, Calderón wants to hold some kind of "refoundational congress" or a party congress (PAN calls "Asamblea Nacional) while he is still in power, obviously given that his clout will be drastically on the wane when he leaves office. Most deputies and leaders of state branches opposes this, preferring instead one in the spring of 2013, when his presidency is over. So does Gustavo Madero, PAN's president, and an antagonist of Calderón

Instead, some kind of compromise appears to have been knitted behind the scenes where a commission will be set up to decide when the next party congress will be held. But even if Calderón has a majority of loyalists on this commission, it seems very unlikely that he'll manage to block its postponement. As such, he faced a clear defeat this weekend.

During his speech, in an extremely rare moment of self-criticism, he said he and PAN had "shared responsibility" for the July 1 results, but also emphasizes that the PAN did a poor job of promoting the "achievements" of his administration. Earlier he made the statement that PAN had presented to many "pygmy candidates" in a meeting with PAN elites in late July.

Others might instead point out that Calderón's PAN has been corrupted and run into the ground much thanks to his very control of it, including the PRI-style dedazos he used to pick two terrible party presidents. It was a sign of his waning control that Gustavo Madero was not his favorite. Nor was Josefina Vázquez Mota.

Calderón is estimated to maintain the loyalty of only around 120 of 380 councilors, or 1/3.
Madero's group is estimated at around 100. With around 60 councilors, those who can tip the balance are regarded  the most conservative of its groups, represented by its secretary general Cecilia Romero Castillo (who was an absolute disaster as head of the INM migrants institute) and Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez (who was an absolute disaster as governor of Guanajuato).

The PAN is need of a refoundation for sure, but while Calderón obviously thinks it needs more calderonismo, perhaps through his wife's 2018 candidacy, many others in the party regard this not as the cure, but as the very cancer the party has suffered from.

Source:
Calderón llega con desventaja al Consejo Nacional del PAN. El Universal, Aug. 11, 2012
Requiere el PAN cambio con rapidez, dice FCH. El Universal,  Aug. 10, 2012.
FCH: tuvo el PAN candidatos pigmeos. El Universal, July 27, 2012
Panistas ponen fecha para iniciar la "refundación". El Universal, Aug. 12, 2012.
Madero, contra reflexión rápida. El Universal, Aug. 12, 2012.
Derrotan a Calderón en el consejo del PAN; la reforma, hasta 2013. La Jornada, Aug. 12, 2012
Clientelismo y ruptura moral de AN, causa de la derrota: Calderón.La Jornada, Aug. 12, 2012

Peña Nieto's narco photos

The PRI politician Rafael Humberto Celaya Valenzuela was arrested in Spain Friday with other presumed members of the Sinaloa cartel. Here are two photos of Celaya with, as he is referred to in media these days, "the candidate who received the most votes in the presidential election" (pending the tribunal verdict in September): Enrique Peña Nieto.

Don't expect Televisa or Milenio to cover this story.

El Universal

SDP Noticias

Source:

Mexican drug cartel members arrested in Spain. Al Jazeera, Aug. 10, 2012