PAN could lose bastion Guanajuato

It is still unlikely, but increasingly less so: PRI is getting within reach of beating PAN in its bastion of Guanajuato, run by the most socially regressive sectors of the party particularly linked to the secret catholic society El Yunque.

PRI candidate Juan Ignacio Torres reportedly pulls 42.2 percent against PAN Miguel Márquez' 50.3. The left has only a marginal presence in the ultra-conservative state, and is in addition running three candidates.

Source:

Guanajuato: aceptan ventaja de panista. El Universal, May 30, 2012.

Reforma shock poll: AMLO only 7 points behind

With apologies for the "shock" usage here, but I don't really know what else to call this:

Reforma newspaper, a center-right leaning newspaper with a remarkably well developed polling team, has AMLO at 34, against 38 of Enrique Peña Nieto. 

Only four points away! The poll reflects a growth of 7 percent for AMLO from the last Reforma poll, taken April 19-22. The most recent poll was taken May 24-27. Other polls on the ADN "poll of polls" also show AMLO rising and EPN diving. 

Source:

Encuesta Reforma: López Obrador a 4 puntos de Peña. ADN Polìtico, May 31, 2012.

Credit where due: Church warns against global warming

Few non-catholics have a higher opinion of Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera than I, and I regard him a generally venomous, misogynistic, gay-bating, child-rapist protecting bigot.

Yet in the most recent Desde la Fe, the publication of his archdiocese of Mexico City, Rivera, in addition to the usual trite admonitions to fight poverty from an ultra-conservative institution, warned against the effects of man-made global warming, noting that the negative fallout of rising temperatures - above all natural disasters - tend to strike particularly the poorest of the poorest far harder than the rest of the population.

Credit where credit's due, cardinal.

Source: 

Urge clero a combatir la pobreza. El Universal, May 28, 2012.

Why "mafia" is a far better term than "cartel"

One recent example why the drug gangs, cartels, etc should simply be referred to as "mafia":

In Michoacán, three storage places of the Sabritas company, which makes potato chips, were burned down in three different places in the state. One does not need much imagination to see this as a case where "protection money" was likely not paid, or was deemed insufficient - one of the oldest mafia practices in the book, far predating the advent of drug trafficking. Hence, "mafia," not "drug cartels."

Source:

Se incendian tres bodegas de Sabritas en Michoacán. El Universal, May 27, 2012.

Intellectuals with Peña Nieto

Interesting array of intellectuals and other leaders who appear to have lined up with Enrique Peña Nieto, judging by those attending an even/-lauding his "responses" to 37 "questions" they had written to the PRI presidential candidate

* Fernando Gómez Mont, former Interior Secretary who resigned from his post and then his party in protest over the 2010 PAN-PRD alliances
* Héctor Aguilar Camín, historian and Televisa personality
* Cecilia Soto, former presidential candidate for PT
* Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, historian
* Alejandro Martí, businessman and anti-kidnapping movement leader
* Ángeles Mastretta, writer

It is perhaps more notable how very few of Mexico's writers and intellectuals, organic or otherwise, have lined up with the PRI candidate.

Source:

Peña presenta decálogo por "presidencia democrática. El Universal, May 22, 2012.

Priísta defiende su formación demócrata. El Universal, May 22, 2012.

PRI, Peña Nieto and Yarrington in 1 minute

While PRI and Peña Nieto run feverishly to distance themselves from Tomas Yarrington, governor of Tamaulipas from 1999 to 2004 and accused of laundering money for the Gulf and/or Zeta mafia, pictures do speak a thousands word, such as the inconvenient photo of Enrique Peña Nieto with the disgraced governor  (h/t Tim Johnson), pasted below.

Sendero De Fecal

Here is also a 1-minute YouTube video expanding on the Peña Nieto-Yarrington-PRI relationship that is well worth your time, where the PRI's 2012 candidate defends Yarrington of the accusations - before it all blew up a day or two ago, that is: Peña Nieto defiende a Yarrington.

(On another note: I just came back from a panel at the 2012 LASA conference in San Francisco, where John Ackerman suggested that Peña Nieto is the preferred candidate of the U.S. government. How ironic that the State Department, through its spokesperson Victoria Nuland, yesterday came out denying it had any intention to interfere in the election - but against EPN).

Sources:

Yarrington denies drug bribe claims. The Brownsville Herald, May 23, 2012.

EU: Yarrington recibió sobornos del narcotráfico. El Universal, May 23, 2012.

Narco soborna en Tamaulipas desde 1998: EU. El Universal, May 23, 2012

Washington: no buscamos influir en elección. El Universal, May 24, 2012
El partido no solapa impunidad, dice PRI. El Universal, May 24, 2012

JVM y Peña chocan por caso Yarrington. El Universal, May 24, 2012

PRD may win Morelos governorship for first time

Given a strong campaign by the popular senator Graco Ramírez Garrido Abreu, the PRD may win the state of Morelos for the first time. El Universal reports Ramírez is now ahead of PRI's Amado Orihuela Trejo.
PAN's Adrián Rivera is on a distant third, in large part due to the very lackluster rule of PAN's Marco Antonio Adame Castillo of the state since 2006.

Morelos, land of Zapata - how fitting for the leftwing PRD.

Here's a (poor quality) graphic from the newspaper:

El Universal

Source:

Empatados, PRI y PRD en Morelos. El Universal, May 24, 2012.

Brad Will's killer caught?

Oaxaca police reported the arrest of a man known as Lenin N, presumed guilty of the killing of U.S independent journalist Brad Will on Oct. 23, 2006, while covering social protest in the state against then governor Ulises Ruiz.

He is accused of shooting the Indymedia journalist from a distance of 43 meter, from a height of 4 meters, with a 38 special revolver - in other words, cowardly gunning down Will from a long distance on top of a building.

Fantastic news if the true killer is indeed caught this time.

Source:

Presentan a presunto asesino de Brad Will. El Universal, May 24, 2012.

Ex PAN leader Espino, now with Peña Nieto

Manuel Espino Barrientos was president of PAN 2005-2007, and a key architect of the "dirty war" against AMLO that had Calderón elected in 2006. Yet he soon fought with the president, and was expelled from the PAN for backing PRI candidates in 2010, a decision he strongly opposed.

As if to prove his ex-party colleagues right, Espino, who belonged to the most arch-reactionary sectors of PAN and was close to the catholic secret extremist organization El Yunque, now came out in favor of Enrique Peña Nieto for the 2012 election. Here is the obligatory raising-the-arm-of-picture:

El Universal

One utterance by Espino was probably as honest an admission as one could expect for the reasons behind his support: "Perhaps you don't need it, because you are ahead by far, but we wanted to be part of your triumph." Indeed.

While Espino's opportunism explains itself, it is even more disturbing that Peña Nieto will appear on stage with such an unsavory character.

Source:

Varias veces Espino lo llamó “amigo Enrique...” El Universal, May 23, 2012

Poll shockers: AMLO single digits behind Peña Nieto

Two polls appear to demonstrate a dramatic turn in the 2012 presidential race in Mexico:

* According to pollster María de las Heras, Peña Nieto pulls 39 against 31 of AMLO
* According to pollster Covarrubias y Asociados, Peña Nieto pulls 36 to AMLO's 27.

This is truly stunning. With one month left of the race, the outcome is increasingly open.

Source:

AMLO acorta ventaja a Peña: Covarrubias y Asociados. El Financiero, May 21, 2012

Peña conserva ventaja; AMLO va segundo en sondeo. El Economista, May 21, 2012

A thug bishop retires

What is one to make of this picture?

La Jornada

Onésimo Cepeda Silva, from his 5,000+-invitees farewell dinner. A former boxer-turned priest, hardcore PRI backer, and a declared opponent of Mexico's secular state, retires after 17 extremely controversial years as  Bishop of Ecatepe in Mexico State.

Good riddance.

Source:
Tras su última misa como obispo, Onésimo Cepeda ofrece comida para 5 mil personas. La Jornada, May 19, 2012
Obispo Cepeda anuncia retiro. El Universal, May 8, 2012.

Pilot fired for greeting AMLO, colleagues force his return

Quite an amazing little story: An Aeroméxico pilot was fired for greeting, over the aircraft intercom, presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who was on the flight.

The story hardly stops there.

His colleagues, in a wonderful display of solidarity and in protest over the extreme reaction from the Aeroméxico management (privatized by PRI's Salinas in the late 1980s), refused to fly, which lead to the cancelling of several flights from Mexico City. After brief negotiations, the pilot, Miguel Pérez, was reinstated.

Source: Cesan a piloto que saludó a AMLO durante un vuelo. La Jornada, May 19, 2012.

Gay rights in Mexico: How far it has come

Call it blatant politicking if you may, but the picture below is in any regard quite a measure on how far (parts of) Mexico has come on gay rights. Contrast it with 1994, when then-PRI lackey in Veracruz, Miguel Angel Yunes, sent a squad of drag queens to "embarrass" the left's presidential candidate,  Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, to make him appear as backed by gay activists. It made the national news.

Here is Miguel Mancera, the PRD's candidate to be mayor in Mexico City, posing with activists from the LGTB community:

El Universal

Times have changed, and not all for the bad.

Source:  Mancera busca ampliar la lucha contra el sida. El Universal, May 18, 2012.

Happy birthday, PRD

Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), born Cinco de Mayo 1989: Happy 23rd.
                       
                 

Peña Nieto taking the left's causes

AMLO accused PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto of "plagiarizing" his proposals, given the latter's new campaign initiative of a minimum universal pension for all.

AMLO is absolutely right: This has long been one of AMLO's campaign causes, and as such it should perhaps be regarded as well as a compliment.

Yet there's a crucial difference. When AMLO was mayor, he actually implemented minimum pensions for the old who were not already covered by other types of pensions or social security.

When Peña Nieto was governor of Mexico State, he had six years during which he could have implemented an initiative he now all of a sudden proposes on the campaign trail.

Unlike AMLO, he never did.

IFE caves: No "cadena" of national debate

IFE's general council voted 7-2 to reject a cadena nacional, where Mexico's venomous media duopoly would simply be forced to transmit the first (of only two) presidential debates, shaping it principally in terms of "liberty," in the sense that IFE should simply not force the broadcast of the this mechanism, but presumably rely on more consensual methods. Yet what about the principle of equity?

Against the blatantly anti-democratic behavior of the two mass media chains Televisa and TV Azteca - yes, it is anti-democratic when a company has the privilege of a near monopoly public airways, awarded at bargain prices, yet refuses to use them for public good - how can one expect that either will be "persuaded" to air the debate on its prime-time star channels?

I am squarely with Alfredo Figueroa and Lorenzo Córdova here, the only two councilors who voted in favor of a cadena. To suggest that this would turn Mexico into a Venezuela-like scenario, where Hugo Chávez for sure has abused this mechanism beyond the pale, is absurd and extremely dishonest reasoning: This is the most important decision Mexican voters will make for the next six years, and all actors should facilitate the wide dissemination of a debate that will help make such a decision.

The very respected former IFE chief José Woldenberg - the man who set up presidential debates in Mexico in the first place - backed such a cadena. The counselors should have listened to him. As Figueroa noted,

There are two channels (television) that concentrate 90% of the radio-electric spectrum and because of individual decisions and for the sake of rating it can be said that much of the nation will be left without the ability to compare different policy options.

Please, no "But if they care so much, they'll find a way to watch it and they should be free to " etc type of arguments. This is not about serving - or not - democracy, pure and simple.

Why Mexico's media duopoly must be crushed

Yet another obvious reason why Mexico's Televisa-TV Azteca media duopoly must be ended:
The two national chains, which have for the past four years did all in their (very considerable) power to discredit IFE and the electoral reform that ended the lucrative political ad business, now refuse to broadcast the two national candidate debates on any prime time TV channel.

IFE Councilor Lorenzo Córdova put it very well:

This episode puts to test the fundamental commitment to democracy of Televisa and TV Azteca... The national chains are in the hands of two groups, and it would be desirable that they reconfirm this vocation.

It is not an irrelevant fact that PRI frontrunner Enrique Peña Nieto is desperate to avoid exposure of unscripted appearances, and the anti-democratic decision of the two chains are of tremendous help.

Note as well that Peña Nieto again bailed out of a debate: The woefully unprepared PRI frontrunner refused to participate in a presidential debate organized by Milenio, as did the inept PAN candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota, with the latter again declaring she would participate in no debate unless Peña Nieto appears.