Guerrero: Aguirre goes after Torreblanca

Guerrero Governor Ángel Aguirre requested the intervention of the federal audit, or the Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF) to investigate the whereabouts of more than seven billion pesos meant for the state education ministry, but mysteriously missing.


Right now, Pricewaterhouse Coopers is undertaking an audit of the administration of Zeferino Torreblanca (2005-2011), and education secretary Silvia Romero Suáre suggested that much more is yet to come.


We'll see.


Earlier this year, El Universal published several damning indictment of Torreblanca's administration (here and here). His supporters claimed improved public infrastructure, given more than 6,000 public works commissioned by the administration, yet he left behind a state overrun by organized crime - in violence, Guerrero is only surpassed by Chihuahua and Durango (45/100,000) - and with severe setbacks in health and education Particularly damning is an increase in mortality rates. A third of Guerrero's inhabitants live in extreme poverty, and illiteracy is rife. Zeferino also proved inept in resolving political crimes such as the much-publicized murder of Armando Chavarría, president of the state congress, in 2009. He broke completely with the party that postulated him, PRD, which he never joined. The PRD was able to elect Aguirre in spite of, and not because of, Zeferino's lackluster administration.


Yet he had his supporters - among them President Felipe Calderón, who defended Torreblanca, yet appeared incapable of taking note of any particular achievement.


Zeferino´s own pathetic defense? If the state of Guerrero is a disaster, it´s because the entire country is a disaster. A more damning admission, impossible.

Another shot fired in IFE's internal war: Comptroller General's salary

Things are stormy in Mexico's electoral institute, Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE), these days. IFE is still three councilors short, given the Chamber of Deputies' failure to agree on three new replacements, and various reports have been flying around in misuse of funds, most recently when IFE allegedly paid more than five times the market value for a building.

The latter issue, and other possible irregularities was raised by IFE's comptroller general, Gregorio Guerrero Pozas, who has also earlier denounced IFE functionaries of an attempt in 2009 to raise their salaries.

It goes perhaps without saying that reations with IFE president  Leonardo Valdés have been less than harmonious. And now, another shot fired, yet this time against comptroller Guerrero: His very, very high salary. Indeed, as El Universal reports, he pulls home a hefty 200,985 pesos in monthly salary, or roughly $17,000 per month. Not only that: Guerrero's salary might be illegally high, as it even surpasses that of an IFE executive director.

I am not sure who is right or wrong here - whether Guerrero is on a misguided warpath against IFE, or whether Leonardo Valdés truly has been an incompetent president in administrative matters. Yet as Mexico approaches the 2012 federal election, and with crucial state elections barely two months away, I have a hard time seeing any positive fallout from IFE's internal war for Mexico's democracy.