Peña Nieto steps down as governor, Eruviel Ávila assumes

Eruviel Ávila Villegas officially assumed as governor of Mexico State today, after an event yesterday with more than 2,000 "specially invited" guests.

How natural that they include former disgraced governor Arturo Montiel, infamous for the corruption and theft  during his government, and the man who made sure that his successor in 2005 would be Enrique Peña Nieto.

Peña Nieto, to recall, didn't lift a finger against Montiel or launch any investigation at all, even though his corruption, when it became known, largely sank his shot at becoming PRI's presidential candidate in 2006.

Now Montiel appears, having avoided the public for six years, to fittingly see off his creation, who is now set on winning the Mexican president.

Montiel received a standing ovation from the crowd.

Arturo Valenzuela: PRI has changed

Arturo Valenzuela is nearing the end of not an exactly stellar tenure as Subsecretary for the Western Hemisphere - the U.S. State Department's highest diplomatic post for Latin America - and one might expect him to speak a bit more freely on a few subjects.

To a group of Mexican journalists, he gave his opinion of the PRI:
"I do not agree with the idea that here there is a party of dinosaurs... Frankly, I see renovation in the PRI. I see new sectors. I see new people. One has done an enormous effort to try to modernize the party."

As for his analysis, I couldn't disagree more. What "modernization" have we seen in the PRI, when the "new" faces of Humberto Moreira, Eruviel Ávila, Enrique Peña Nieto etc, merely continue exactly the same clientelistic and authoritarian practices of the "old" PRI?

What a parting gift to the PRI! Thanks for nothing, Arturo.

PRI's win: It hurts, and especially because of the "why"

I readily admits it hurts to see the smirking face of PRI president Humberto Moreira all over the Mexican media, following the PRI's demolishing carro completo - and, as I believe Manuel Camacho has noted a few times, not chiefly for the PRI's victory, but because of how they win: They contract as much public and private debt they can, go on a wild spending free, and leave the problems for the future, for the people to pick up the bill.

It is an irresponsibility and cynicism that angers.

Eruviel Ávila's win, with 41 percent more votes than his closes adversary, is the highest in Mexico State's history, according to Milenio.

Yes, and when  Enrique Peña Nieto became governor of Mexico State, the state debt was 1.5 billion pesos.
By 2010, it was 37 billion.

Preliminary results Mexico state elections: Nayarit, Coahuila, Hidalgo, Mexico State

Here are links to the PREP preliminary results (click on state names), updated around 2:30 AM Mexican time

Mexico State - Eruviel Ávila (PRI) ahead around 62 percent

Coahuila -  Rubén Moreira (PRI) has around 60 percent

Nayarit - Roberto Sandoval (PRI) ahead around 42 percent

Hidalgo state election (municipalities only) - results not ready from the state's electoral institute yet, but PRI seems to ahead in at least 42 muncipalities, or half of the 84 in play, including the state capital Pachuca.

A great day to be a priísta.

The June 22 Encinas-Bravo Mena-Ávila Mexico State debate

Yesterday's debate can be found here in its entirety. There is from my point of view no doubt who commands the debate: Alejandro Encinas.

How subsidies benefit the rich in Mexico: United Nations report

The new United Nations Report Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano México 2011: equidad del gasto público: derechos sociales universales con subsidios focalizados, highlights how so many of the Mexican government's programs "in redistributive terms are probably very questionable": They do not serve to lessen income differences, but rather benefit the rich more than the poor. I haven't gotten to read the report yet, but El Universal highlights a few examples:

- Farm subsidies going to richer farmers
- Health spending benefits not going to the poorest
- Education spending, ditto

(One excellent earlier study that demonstrate what programs in fact to improve equality, and which lead to more inequality, is A Decade of Falling. Inequality in Mexico: Market Forces or State Action? by Gerardo Esquivel, Nora Lustig and John Scott. One earlier version available for free here)

Another case in point: Ending the tenencia, or roughly the sales tax for new cars, has been a populist mantra for particularly PRI candidates for governor, who foolishly (from a financial, not electoral point of view) have championed taking away a tax that not only has provided much-needed income to cash-strapped state governments, but whose elimination will be a blatant hand-out to the more wealthy of Mexicans.

Who wants to pay car sales taxes voluntarily? Of course few, but fact remains that the ones most likely to pay the highest tenencia are from the upper economic layers of Mexican society.

Credit then, of sorts, to Veracruz Governor César Duarte,  who despite irresponsibly calling for the elimination of the tenencia in his election campaign, is now backtracking and want to keep it, realizing that its elimination would break the state's finances.

What a belated "discovery" - after the election has been one, of course.

Guess who else is proposing its elimination, and ranking high in polls? PRI candidate Eruviel Ávila in Mexico State. When the time comes to pick up the bill... well, that's another story.

The end of the Convergencia party? Good riddance

The Convergencia party appears set to dissolve to become AMLO's own party, including changing its name to Morena, the name of AMLO's movement. Some party members oppose this plan.

Why good riddance? Because this is a party that, while now appearing as a radical pro-AMLO party, started out, and very much remains, the personal outfit of Senator Dante Delgado Rannauro, once an interim PRI governor from Vera Cruz, who ditched PRI to create Convergencia in 1998. The party ever since sold itself to the highest bidder, and it took major concessions from the left (PRD) for Convergencia to accept being its partner in 2006. After this election, when it was in danger, with the Partido del Trabajo, of losing its registry because of its low turnout, it jumped on AMLO's bandwagon, becoming one of the most "radical" parties in Mexico - a complete turnaround.  Before and after, it has on state elections at times joined with the left, other times with its electoral opponents - wherever it could reap some direct benefits. Most recent example: Now Víctor Hugo Círigo, a national Convergencia deputy, has joined the PRI campaign of Eruviel Ávila in Mexico State.

New, serious political parties, with a clear agenda and mission, are always welcome, but Convergencia never belonged to that category, rather merely contributing to fragmentation of the vote in Mexico.

So good riddance, Convergencia.

The best allies money can buy: The Arce-Círigo brothers, now with PRI

After Carlos Loret de Mola first noted the development in his column, it's now official:
The Arce-Círigo brothers - René Arce and Víctor Hugo Círigo - have amazingly enough, after ditching the PRD in 2009, lined up behind PRI. The Mexico City power brokers - their main stronghold remains Iztapalapa - have now allied with the PRI and Peña Nieto, Senator René Arce announced yesterday.

The El Universal article puts its best in its opening line: "René Arce has always played to the highest bidder," as has his brother. The two ditched the PRD in 2009 when they failed to win control of Iztapalapa, which they earlier took turns governing,  and have now quite notably lined up behind Eruviel Ávila for Mexico State governor. Former PRD deputy Ruth Zavaleta, who also governed the borough Venustiano Carranza, is also closely allied with the brothers (she is the girlfriend of René), and was the first to publicly join Peña Nieto and the PRI, in the failed PRI campaign in Guerrero (she earlier quixotically tried to be the gubernatorial candidate there).

Outside of Mexico City - the importance of the newfound allies lies, of course, in the proximity of the former to key urban zones of Mexico State, which in places completely overlap - an additional new ex-PRD ally is José Diego León Díaz, a former regidor of Neza, who claimed to bring with him 4,000 PRD supperters over to the side of Eruviel Ávila.

PRD candidate for governor Alejandro Encinas said it best: "unfortunately, there are some compañeros who can be bough." The same, of course, applies eminently well to the Arce-Círigo brothers.
Yet beyond the PRD woes, while hardly new, it is a deeply troubling development, as one can hardly blame citizens for their cynicism toward politicians and political parties, with such a spineless lack of ideological and party loyalty.

For Eruviel Ávila, and of course for Peña Nieto in 2012 and whomever the PRI postulates for Mexico City governor, this is an important tactical victory.

First Mexico State gubernatorial debate, available here on youtube

First Mexico State gubernatorial debate, led by Denise Maerker, available in complete form here on youtube

Phrase of the day, following Edomex debate

Attention has earlier been raised toward the ridiculous practice, in Mexcio State now taking to the very extreme, of notarized "promises" made by a candidate ahead of an election.

In the first debate held by the three Mexico State candidates, where reportedly PRD candidate Alejandro Encinas came out on top,  PAN candidate Luis Felipe Bravo Mena had the best characterization of the 6,000 compromisos practice:  "A diarrhea of promises."

Indeed.

See the debate for yourself here.

Why Ley Peña was implemented in Mexico State: One obvious reason "revealed"

With the Mexico State gubernatorial campaign well underway, we can now see clearly exactly why Govenror Enrique Peña Nieto was so eager to change the state's electoral code (what was dubbed Ley Peña) including shortening the campaign to 45 days. Mexico State has 125 municipalities, and visiting all during the campaign is virtuall impossible.

Unless...
Unless you have your own helicopter! 

Eruviel Ávila, PRI's candidate (and, lest we forget, in coalition with the misnomed "Green Party" (PVEM), insists that his use of a private helicopter does not entail going over campaign spending limits.

Yet how much does it costs to have a private helicopter? That information, however, Ávila declined to say.

Mexico State gubernatorial campaign begins today

Mexico State's electoral instute, IEEM, approved the registry of all three candidates - PRI, PAN, and PRD - and the campaign to be the state's governor officially started today - or, that is, at midnight yesterday.

Despite a last-minute request from PAN that IIEM again investigate the residency of Encinas in Mexico State, the institute accepted the legality of the documents offered by Encinas, which demonstrated that he still maintained the required residency in the state. While PRI candidate Eruviel Ávila (see Gancho's right-on take on his campaign opening here) has promised he will not question the legality of Encinas' candidacy, should Encinas gain traction in the race, it is nonetheless a very likely action to take.

For now, that threat comes from PAN, which yet again swore it would continue its quest to have Encinas out of the contest, by taking the case to the electoral tribunal.

Hard to believe at times that just weeks ago, the PRD and PAN were contemplating a common candidate.

Mexico State: Poll numbers give PRI near majority

From Milenio:

As this graphic suggests, the PRI's commanding lead in Mexico State is unlikely to be surpassed: Eruviel Ávila is ahead with nearly 48 percent of the vote, close to a clean full majority. Combined, the PRD and PAN candidates barely scrape in at 30 percent, though it is impossible to assess whether this would have been their combined total if a coalition would have been achieved, or, with a nod to Gestalt theory, the sum would have been greater than the individual parts. 

No "desafuero, part II" in Mexico State?

Eruviel Ávila, PRI's candidate to succeed Enrique Peña Nieto as governor of Mexico State, notably declared PRI would not seek to impugn Alejandro Encinas' residency requirement in Mexico State, thus inhibiting the latter's candidacy. This is the second time Ávila has sought to distance himself from the national PRI; a few days ago, notably, he spoke out against PRI's national leader Humberto Moreira when in his typical drunk-rabble-rouser-looking-for-a-barfight style argued PRI would aplastar, or crush/destroy/squash the opposition. Ávila was careful to point out he didn't regard political opposition as something to be "destroyed."

Yet what if Encinas start catching up on the PRI candidate? The party, despite claims to the contrary, has not renovated or discarded its authoritarian, corrupt modus operandi. Expect the party to quickly discard its promise in this eventuality.

Alas: Even Encinas a "unity candidate" of the PRD. The death of primaries.

I'll be the first to admit that Alejandro Encinas is PRD's best card at having a shot at the Mexico State governorship, even though those chances appear much dimmer given what is at least the official end to a PRD-PAN electoral alliance in the entity. However, rather than going through any kind of party vote or primary, Encinas was simply pronounced to be PRD's "unity" candidate by its National Political Commission (CPN).

All the three main parties in Mexico State, then,  resorted to "unity" candidates; the PAN, most recently, designated Luis Felipe Bravo Mena its gubernatorial hopeful.

This certainly makes any criticism of PRI for the dedazo designation of  Eruviel Ávila ring hollow: The PRD, in the end, chose its candidate in what is in essence the exact same manner.

Does it get more groveling than this? Eruviel Ávila pleads for help

Eruviel Ávila, PRI's dedazo'd candidate for governor of Mexico State, pleaded for the help of  Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the teachers "union" SNTE, and the corporatist cadres under her iron control:

"I need maestra Elba Esther; I need the teachers from the state of Mexico from the federalized sector; I need the state teachers, I need everyone."

While it has long been known that Gordillo has essentially returned to the PRI, and that her cadres, always for sale to the highest bidder, can swing, and have swung, many elections - in Mexico state, there are more than 70,000 federalized teachers and 70,000 state teachers into this corporatist holdover of a PRI union - can one at least show a modicum of dignity and not literally beg for their support?

The perverse practices of "notarized promises"

I recall Gancho has railed against this in the past, and I can only wholeheartedly concur and repeat criticism against the practice of particularly PRI candidates to sign a range of "promises" during political campaigns, and then to have them physically notarized (!). It is utterly ridiculous first and foremost because these "promises," which in the case of Mexico State and Enrique Peña Nieto reached a number of around six hundred or so, tend to be very minor and encompass only a fraction of total budget expenses.

But even more so, it is a remarkable self-admission on part of the politicians: I need to sign these campaign promises with a notary, because you really can't trust me on my word. And to add: How on earth would anyone be actually sanctioned for breaking these promises? A fine? Prison? Public shaming? Why bother to sign at all?

Yet true to form, PRI's candidate-by-designation to be Mexico State governor, Eruviel Ávila, just promised that  he would do the very same thing - and that the number of promises, mind you, would even surpass his predecessor's 600. Thank goodness, now we now he is really serious!

Whatever happened to primaries? The dedazo alive and well, and not only within PRI

The charade witnessed this weekend, when rather than actually running in any kind of primary or internal party vote, Eruviel Ávila was simply "declared" the PRI's candidate in Mexico State, was hardly just a one-time throwback to PRI's infamous dedazo process, where the outgoing governor/president/etc would simply designate his next successor as the designate of the party. In Nayarit, the exact same thing happened: Here, Roberto Sandoval Castañeda, mayor of the capital Roberto Sandoval Castañeda, was yesterday pronounced a "candidate of unity" by the PRI to be the next governor of the state.

Yet this is hardly limited to the PRI: As columist Denise Maerker pointed out in today's El Universal, PAN, in declaring that its candidate for Mexico State governor, alliance with PRD or no alliance, would be Luis Felipe Bravo Mena, is replicating the very practice.

And lest we forget: The backers of Alejandro Encinas in the PRD are calling for the very same thing, to simply drop any internal process due to prominent advantages of Encinas - poll numbers, name recognition etc. Now, Encinas may very well be the "natural" candidate of the PRD, and the only one with a minimal chance of winning the Mexico State election. Yet for the PRD's sake - a party for whom democratization has been the emblem since its inception - I truly hope the party will not fall into the temptation of simply dropping the primary or any semblance of open selection process, and in turn simply declare Encinas its "unity candidate" as well. If it does, it will truly add to the old saying that in Mexico, everyone carries a little priista inside of them.

Mexico State poll numbers

From Milenio:

No shocker here: Assuming there will be no alliance and that PRD and PAN will run separately, PRI's Eruviel Ávila is ahead with 39 percent, against Alejandro Encinas' 24 and Luis Felipe Bravo Mena (PAN)'s 24.
Just like the proponents of a PRD-PAN alliance has argued, there appears little chance of either PRD or PAN winning against the PRI candidate

Eruviel Ávila with thinly veiled reference: "I am from Mexico State"

Candidate-designate Eruviel Ávila declared that "Yo sí soy del Estado de México," or "I am from Mexico state," with emphasis on "I" here. It is a barely veiled reference to his possible opponent Alejandro Encinas, who may, should he compete with Ávila for the governorship, will very likely soon find his required residency in Mexico State questioned by the PRI.