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.