Michoacán: Government Secretary says reconcile with drug gangs

A quite notable lack of harmony from the Michoacán state government: The Government Secretary, Rafael Melgoza, suggested that the drug gangs should "reconcile" with the people and community.

Also these people who are engaged in this illegal activity have to reconcile, it sounds bad to express this phrase, but they need to reconcile, they must reconcile these illegal activities that they perform  with the interests of peoples and communities."

Shortly thereafter, the state government, led by Leonel Godoy, sent out a press bulletin distancing itself from what was said by its Government Secretary, essentially the second in command of the state government.

Michoacán: Tierra Caliente violence as La Familia splinters?

Mexican marines arrived in Apatzingán municipality Thursday, following of days of narco fighting that has left thousands of people homeless. Apatzingán lies in Michoacán's Tierra Caliente region, and is the home turf of La Familia Michoacàna. What appears particularly noteworthy is that the violence appears due to infighting within La Familia, with a new organization, named Los Caballeros Templarios, seemingly taking on old allies in La Familia, headed by José de Jesús "El Chango" Méndez. Most of Michoacán´s violence, as far as I can tell, has earlier been between La Familia and the Zetas, and the seeming split in the former appears a new development.

Various refugee shelters have been set up for the thousands of people, mostly poor agricultural workers, who have been affected by the violence and forced to flee from their home, particularly from the town of Buenavista close to Apatzingán. Even the BBC has picked up the story.

Notably - and this took me quite by surprise - PAN and the PRD, and seemingly also PRI, did not only agree to a "civility pact" in the state, which has elections coming up in November,  but also a common gubernatorial candidacy, something promoted particularly by PAN and PRD´s presidents, Gustavo Madero, and Jesús Zambrano. Earlier, Governor Leonel Godoy expressed strong opposition to the idea, yet now seems more open. Whatever will come out of it, it is an indication that the national parties are well aware that Michoacán is facing an immense onslaught from organized crime, and that new options are now on the table.

The Inconvenient Brother: Julio Godoy Toscano loses congressional immunity

The Mexican lower house of congress voted to remove the fuero or immunity from legal persecution from the "inconvenient" (half)brother of Governor Leonel Gody, Julio Godoy Toscano, national deputy for the PRD. The vote was massive: 384-2, with 21 abstentions. Godoy, who reportedly has already removed his things from his office in San Lázaro, thus lost his legislative immunity and can face the criminal charges against him presented by the PGR, the attorney general's office. Most of the PRD deputies voted as well in favor: The party wants to get this case over as soon as possible, to avoid the negative publicity ahead of the upcoming gubernatorial elections in Michoacán last year. With the fuero removed, hopefully Mexicans will know eventually whether Godoy Toscano is indeed guilty, or if this is, as Godoy himself has argued, a political persection.

40-year-anniversary of death of Mexico's greatest president: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas calls for unity

In a commemoration of the the 40th anniversary for the death of his father, Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano called for the unity of left, democratic, and progressive forces. Flanked by Leonel Godoy, governor of the Cárdenas' home state Michoacán, and Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, the PRD founder declared:

"We are proposing the elaboration of a unifying proposal that contains the agreements of those who identify themselves as revolutionaries, democrats, and/or progressives... Let's put aside personal aspirations or aspirations of groups. Let us not complicate this task with electoral matters, for which time will come to make decisions."

Three quick comments, and a question:

1. As always, the issue is not so much who was there but who was not: AMLO.
2. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas denouncing personal ambitions? Boy, do you look black, teapot!
3. AMLO already proposed his "Alternative National Protect."
4. A unifying proposal  - who will be the unifying personality, ingeniero?

Julio César Godoy Toscano is out of PRD. Guilty until proven innocent?

Godoy Toscano claimed he renounced from the PRD in order to avoid the party being a "scapegoat."  Yet it isclear the PRD leadership, first and foremost its national president Jesús Ortega, but also andresmanuelistas such as Alejandro Encinas, and, to be sure, Michoacán governor and half-brother of Godoy Toscano, Leonel Godoy, in unison demanded that the federal deputy leave the party, following the leak to the media of audio recordings where Godoy Toscano is apparently engaging in jovial conversation with a capo from the La Familia Michoacana gangster outfit.

How much the case has damaged the PRD is clearly far too early to tell, though I  take issue with the implications drawn from today's editorial in El Universal. Entited "The Naivety of the PRD," it argues,

"the PRD committed a very grave error in politics: To put their hands in the fire for a person whose incorruptibility was not guaranteed"

So because the PRD was not 100% sure of its innocence, it should not have backed Godoy's legal right to assume his seat as a federal deputy? This seems to me to turning the principle of presumption of innocence thoroughly on its head. Why on earth should the party not have backed the deputy until this point, when his corruptibility was far from guaranteed, not his incorruptibility? Following the release of the tapes, the PRD acted pretty swiftly to detach themselves from Godoy Toscano; to have done so earlier to me would have been to abdicate the very principle of presumption of innocence.

Broad backlash to Calderón's comments on AMLO. Why did he do it?

Calderón's petty attack on AMLO is receiving quite a backlash from broad swaths of Mexico's political elite. While the ruling PAN at first supported the president's statements, some key PAN cadres such as Senator Santiago Creel and  Manuel Espino, no less - the latter head of PAN during the 2006 electoral debacle - more than implied that Calderón's remarks were unbefitting of a president. Creel dixit: "There are times to compete, and others to coincide and govern" 

Other reactions:

- Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín, PRI deputy and president of the Chamber of deputies, said the remarks were "inopportune and unnecessary."

- The key priísta Emilio Gamboa Patrón, head of the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (CNOP) and a contender for the PRI party presidency, said:

"What Mexico needs is unity and peace, not opening old wellsprings, and Calderón shouldn't return to talk about 2006. I think his statement was very untimely." 

Notably, various IFE councilors berated Calderón, and even the president of IFE's council, Leonardo Valdés, weighed in:

"I cannot share any indications that could cast doubt on the professional activities of the institute [IFE] to organize and aribrate elections"

IFE councilor Francisco Guerrero as well sought to foreshadow implications for 2012:

"We want an election that, although competitive, takes place within the margins of the law, and while the President as a citizen can well offer his point of view, it is important to remember that because of his office he is obligated to create conditions of unity and governability for the country."

Ouch. Given these harsh reactions, which Calderón surely must have foreseen, why did he do it? Only he could answer that question, but it is a quite ominous signal that Calderón, like Fox in 2006, will not stand on the sidelines when it comes to electing his successor as president. Will he similarly intervene against the likely candidates of Ebrard and Peña Nieto in 2012?


For now, a more pertinent worry is likely to be Michoacán, where his sister María Luisa Calderón Hinojosa is very keen on succeeding Leonel Godoy as governor in 2011: Fears exist among the state PRD that Calderón will go to considerate lengths to ensure her victory. To the perredistas, the now-infamous Michoacanazo was merely the first of more political attacks to come.  


On a side note: Chucho Ortega, PRD president, for the nth time used the occasion of Calderón's comments to reiterate there will be no PAN-PRD common presidential candidate in 2012. Ahí está.

Where in the world is Julio César Godoy? The case, and the Michoacanazo, stinks to high heaven

Where in the world is Julio César Godoy Toscano? The half brother of Michoacán Governor Leonel Godoy Rangel has not been seen since June 28 2009, days before he was elected a national deputy from Michocán's First electoral district in the city of Lázaro Cárdenas, in Mexico's federal (midterm) elections.


Yet in a rather comic show of force, more than 200 police officers from the Federal Police (PF) and the Attorney General's Office (PGR) laid siege, of sorts, of San Lázaro, the Mexican Chamber of Deputies,  to prevent Godoy Toscano from being sworn in as a member of Congress, which he is rumoured to do in near future. The police are constitutionally prohibited from entering the building, yet are apparently keen on preventing the deputy-elect from swearing in an thus achieving a constitutional fuero, or procedural immunity from prosecution.  

The case stinks to high heaven, as does the now-infamous Michoacanazo from June 2009. To recall, Godoy Toscano, together with a range of other functionaries and politicians, was accused of links to organized crime, specifically La Familia Michoacana, and more than 30 state functionaries, municipal presidents, and police were arrested in a military operation ordered by federal authorities that caught governor Godoy completely by surprise and of which he was not informed.

The problem: The evidence against most of the apprehended, as well against the fugitive Godoy Toscano, was very flimsy, to put it mildly. One by one the arrested have been released and charges dropped. Almost all the functionaries have been let go, as have 11 out of 12 arrested mayors, and governor Godoy let it be known that shortly Miguel García Hurtado, who was notably his state attorney general/prosecutor and the top man to be accused of aiding La Familia, will be released as well 

Yet back to Godoy Toscano. On Monday, a Michoacán judge granted him the restoration of his full political rights, meaning that the governor's brother may now technically be sworn in as a national deputy. However, one arrest warrant for the alleged ties to organized crime in Michoacán is still valid, so the PGR/PF therefore is attempting to snatch Godoy Toscano before this swearing in. 

Governor Godoy, argued "there is a persecution, there is an unusual harasssment" of Godoy Toscanao. It is, to be sure, quite noteworthy that the accused has sought and successfully obtained, on three occasions, an amparo, or injunction, against being apprehended, yet for every stay a new arrest warrant has been issued by different judges. So far, one was issued in Nayarit, two in Tamaulipas, and a one Jalisco.

PRD considers it a political plot;  PRD president Jesús Ortega denounced the now fourth (and counting) order of apprehension a "a persecution that has no legal reasons and only political-electoral motives," calling for Attorney General-Federal Prosecutor Arturo Chávez Chávez to step down. The case is murky. If Godoy Toscano is sworn in, the public may indeed perceive this quite negatively as a possible move simply to obtain legal immunity. Yet at the same time, while it would be a terrible scenario if Godoy Toscanao and the 30-odd other functionaries and politicians were guilty yet are freed due to police incompetence, it is a far more serious scenario if, as both Ortega and governor Godoy has suggested, this is indeed a political persecution, ahead of upcoming elections in Michoacán, where Felipe Calderón's sister is a veyr likely PAN candidate. Hopefully, time will tell. In the meantime, Godoy Toscano should follow his brother's advice to turn himself in. 

Michoacán: Governor Godoy names military replacement for Minerva Bautista

While many of the state secretariats of public security in Mexico are indeed led by military men, I still find it noteworthy that Governor Leonel Godoy named a retired general as the replacement for Minerva Bautista, who famously survived a 2700-bullet assassination attempt last April (her battered armored car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee,  can actually be seen displayed at the armored car maker Protecto Glass' workshop in Mexico City), and apparently decided to step down.

Large parts of Michoacán such as the port of Lazaro Cárdenas and the Tierra Caliente zone are certainly ground zero in the "drug war,", and the threat posed by the armed mafias is clearly huge, as illustrated by the massive yet fortunately failed attack on the state's top security official. However, members of the PRD, to which Godoy belongs, have been among the most critical of the militarization of security, yet clearly Godoy has as come to the conclusion that state security is best left in the hands of the military.

AMLO and Cárdenas - reconciliation after all of these years?

AMLO, on tour in Michocán to promote his book and, inevitably, his 2012 candidacy, notably praised the Cárdenas clan, from Lázaro to Cuauhtémoc to Lazaro junior. This is interesting given the acrimonious relations between AMLO and CC the past decade, when AMLO as Mexico City mayor eclipsed CC as the most important figure within the PRD. Things got particularly bad, to recall, during the 2006 elections, when CC did not campaign for AMLO (he had for the longest contested his nomination as PRD´s presidential candidate, which would have been his fourth try), and refused to even saythat he voted for him. Moreover, CC as quickly recognized the victory of Felipe Calderón in 2006. This left much bitterness within the AMLO camp. I remember interviewing 6-7 of AMLO´s "secretaries" of his "legitimate government," and "traitor" was a common characterization. 


Yet the AMLO-CC spat was more a clash of egos rather than any programmatic differences; AMLO, for one, was recruited by CC in the fall of 1988- many andresmanuelistas tend to forget that AMLO was not with CC in the fateful 1988 election, remaining loyal to PRI until CC recruited him to finally bail PRI and join the Frente Democrático Nacional for the Tabasco state elections - and their trajectories mirror each other highly. CC, to recall, was highly anti-institutional, refused to declare himself ideologically in terms of left and right, was highly skeptical of institutional reform, such as the crucial 1995-6 electoral reforms - yet while he eventually moderated, AMLO kept up this discourse until this day. 


But back to the point of this news article: Given that both AMLO and CC heavily criticized the highly successful PAN-PRD state alliances, they appear to recall their common ground, particularly as it may include a PRD presidency for CC´s son Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, former governor of Michoacán, or other positions. Both, to be sure,  are highly critical of the leadership of Jesús Ortega of PRD.
It will be very interesting to see where Michocán Governor Leonel Godoy will stand. He is much closer to the Ortega camp ideologically and in terms of political trajectory, but owes much to both AMLO and CC. Much remains to be decided. 

Who will lead the PRD after Ortega?

It seems like only months ago that Jesús Ortega was finally granted the party presidency of the PRD, after a ruling by TEPJF, the electoral tribunal. The party election was amazingly held by mass vote by the party base, even though every single election through this mechanism has led to a disaster, and particularly since the party by 2008 was more bitterly divided than at any point in history. My heart sinks just thinking the thought that the next election might in the end be held by this manner again.

It is my opinion that the PRD´s disastrous electoral result in 2009 was hardly the fault of Ortega, but rather of the refusal of his internal party opponents to accept his leadership and instead continue their "friendly" fire, and of AMLO´s decision to turn his back on his old party and campaign for the PT and Convergencia in that year's federal mid-term election.

This article in El Universal gives a decent run-down of some of the frontrunners, yet I digress strongly with its warning against trying out the proposed new method of electing party president, namely by a 60% supermajority in the PRD's national council. First, given the many cochineros of internal elections in the past, isn't it worth trying? How many times shall one keep doing the same thing and expect a different result? As for the internal division in the PRD I believe it remains as strong as ever, and now a new fault line as well is adding to the others, namely whether to push for AMLO in 2012 or not. And so what if this means the corrientes will need to pact a majority agreement? Isn´t that exactly the point? The andresmanuelistas has again and again showed they are terribly poor losers that generally tend to refuse to accept losses, particularly within PRD's own institution. This might serve to keep them on, rather than a zero-sum pro-AMLO or a pro-Nueva Izquierda president. Moreover, a supermajority requirement would be (somewhat) akin to a version of parliamentarism, which many in the PRD has long advocated.

The post also mentions Dolores Padierna as a possible candidate. It is my opionion that if Padierna, wife of the infamous René Bejarano, gets control of the PRD, the party is truly doomed. No one has done more to sow internal party division and create bad blood than the people of the corriente IDN, which, to recycle an overused saying,is hardly of the left but socially conservative and stalinist (I for izquierda), certainly not internally democratic but lead with an iron hand by Bejarano/Padierna (D for democrática), and hardly national (N for nacional), as its main strength lies with the clientelistic networks maintained by Bejarano in Mexico City. Only Nueva Izquierda, of Ortega et al, has proven capable, or rather, bothered to build a national organization. Padierna yet again recently called for Ortega to step down, demonstrating yet again IDN's failure to accept its loss. 

One candidate that is not mentioned is Michoacán Governor Leonel Godoy. Every single perredista in the upper echelons of the PRD that I´ve talked to have been full of praise for Godoy´s 2003-2005 interim presidency of the PRD following the utter disastrous presidency of Rosario Robles. The contrast to his successor Leonel Cota, who was regarded as completely subservient  to AMLO, was also remarkable.
He could again be somewhat of a, for lack of better word, "unity" candidate.
Yo voy con Godoy.