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.

The effects of Ley Peña: The left can't make its platform public

One tangible effect of the highly regressive electoral legislation steamrolled through the Mexico State legislature and nicknamed Ley Peña or (Governor Enrique) Peña Nieto's law:

Given that the legislation, among other things, cut drastically short the time allowed for campaigning, the PRD-PT-Convergencia coalition behind the candidacy of Alejandro Encinas, which Friday presented its campaign platform to the Mexico State electoral institute, desisted from making the platform public, out of fear of breaking the new legislation.

Encinas:

"These reforms are unfavorable not only to debate, political discussion, and the exercise of citizen rights, but also inhibit discussion and hence political participation. The intent of these reforms is to prevent the exercise of democratic participation of citizens with political parties."

Hard to disagree here.

PRD takes Ley Peña to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

PRD has decided to take the Supreme Court's decision to approve the "Ley Peña" to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, for violating the party's political rights.

Luis Sánchez Jiménez, PRD's leader in Mexico state, qualified the law as "repressive," and former  Supreme Court minister Juventino Castro y Castro, now a PRD national deputy, qualified the ruling as an "impediment" to exercise free political rights. Jesús Zambrano, PRD deputy and vice president of the Chamber of Deputies, backed the decision to take it to the to the IACHR/CIDH, which appears in all essence as futile and rather symbolic move more than anything else. 

Mexican Supreme Court: "Ley Peña"/Peña Nieto's Law is constitutional

The Mexican Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the last-minute and unilaterals change to Mexico State's electoral codes, known popularly as "Ley Peña" or Peña Nieto's Law," are nonetheless constitutional. The Court didn't have much leeway; earlier, it had ruled that a similar law passed in Guanajuato was indeed legal.

Ley Peña may not breach the constitution, but it certainly does with regards to the spirit of the law: It was introduced, steamrolled by PRI and its allies with no consultation with the opposition, then passed in an amazing hurry in the required 2/3 of Mexico's municipalities. Every single aspect of the law blatantly favors the PRI, and PRD and its allies had also pointed out, in their complaints, massive irregularities in particularly the ratification part of the process, but their arguments were rejected.

The Supreme Court decision is disappointing: Mexico's young democracy, increasingly under attack on the state levels, received no protection from the country's highest constitutional authority.

Governor Enrique Peña Nieto, to be sure, gloated over the decision, arguing with no apparent shame that "it makes it clear that the reform was made by the social representation of the state of Mexico." Please.

Pro-AMLO block formed in Mexico State congress, but draw little support

Though AMLO will likely construe it as just another sign that the PRD is "hijacked" by his enemies, it is noticable that the new legislative block formed in the Mexico State legislature to back AMLO from the PRD only drew in Ricardo Moreno Bastida, who was until recently coordinator of the group yet was deposed by his peers after opposing the PAN-PRD coalitions and then declared himself "independent" of any party affiliation, and Crisóforo Hernández Mena, in addition to three PT deputies - Carlos Sánchez, Francisco Barragán y Óscar Hernández - and, quite amusingly, the three Convergencia deputies as well as Horacio Jiménez, Miguel Ángel Xolalpa e Ignacio Samperio.

Why amusing? While Convergencia on the national level is a more or less loyal backer of AMLO, in Mexico State the party has often joined forces with Governor Enrique Peña Nieto. Most notoriously, and quite recently, the Convergencia deputies voted in favor of the now-infamous Ley Peña, a last-minute legislation steamrolled through congress to seek to prevent a common PAN-PRD candidate. One can only hope that someday it will be uncovered what they asked and got in return from the Mexico State governor.
In any case, that new lopezobradorista block did not attract more members seem to suggest that the PRD is, despite AMLO's incessant campaigning against the alliances, quite lined up behind its state council, which voted 2/3 in favor of entering in alliances with parties such as the PAN.

PRD takes Ley Peña to the Supreme Court.

The PRD yesterday presented their official case of complaint to the Mexican Supreme Court regarding the presumed unconstitutionality of "Ley Peña" or Enrique Peña Nieto's law, the hastily passed amendment to Mexico State's electoral law that directly seek to sabotage a broad multi-party alliance to compete against the PRI in next year's gubernatorial election. Most famously, the legislation prohibits parties from running a common candidate while maintaining separate legislative lists, and drastically reduces party funds and representation at the state electoral institute for electoral alliances.

PT and Convergencia also signed on to the complaint, though this should not be interpreted as if the parties had a change of heart regarding their opposition to joining an alliance that also includes the PAN. Rather, they are upset with the clauses where the parties, even if they end up only allying with with each other and the PRD, will equally lose funds as the coalition will "count as one" rather than assigning funds, media slots, etc to each individual party.

I am not sure how far they will come with this. The manner in which Peña Nieto rammed through the anti-alliance legislation was highly disrespectful of the democratic process and filled with irregularities. It exposed the Mexico State governor as an opportunistic Machiavellian who will do everything he can to have PRI successor elected to replace him, even if it means undermining democratic institutions and poisoning the political climate by riding roughshod over the opposition. Every step of the process was filled with irregularities, though whether they will "add up," of sorts, in order for the Supreme Court to declare the law unconstitutional, is a different matter. The fact that PAN didn't join them in doing so - at least not yet - may be a sign the PAN knows the case is far from waterproof legally speaking.

Regardless: Should the Supreme Court find the "Ley Peña" unconstitutional, and in time for it to affect the 2011 gubernatorial election, it will be a big blow against Peña Nieto.

Marcelo Ebrard: "Today is the beginning of the end of priísta governments in Mexico State"

La Jornada's front page exaggerated the issue a bit - "López Obrador and Ebrard collide over the State of Mexico" - though the appearance of both the current and the former head of Mexico City, both of whom are seeking their party's nomination for the 2012 presidential race, was certainly noteworthy.

In the first major appearance in what can only be regarded as the unofficial launch of his presidential campaign, in the Plaza de los Mártires, Ebrard  make a clear call for a common front to defeat the PRI in the upcomign gubernatorial elections in the state, and especially to avoid two candidates of the left, one backed by the PRD, and the other by AMLO: "All that divides [the left] will work in favor of Enrique Peña Nieto, adn all that unifies is will work in favor of the people." While he didn't mention PAN or AMLO by name, the references were quite obvious. Reportedly more than 25,000 people came out for the mass rally, which was also attended by key perredistas such as senators Carlos Navarrete, Graco Ramírez, and Héctor Bautista, the latter a likely PRD candidate for the governorship. Ebrard declared that "Today is the beginning of the end of priísta governments in Mexico State," and promised a government that would implement the the highly popular, and successful, social programs of his Mexico City administration, such as stipends to young adults, children, single mothers, people with disabilities, and senior citizens.

Luis Sánchez, head of PRD in Mexico State and a backer of a Ebrard and a PAN-PRD alliance, also said that the PRD will tomorrow head to the Supreme Court to formally launch a complaint against the recently passed "Ley Peña," which directly seeks to block a PAN-PRD alliance by forcing parties to also present common legislative lists.

AMLO also held meetings, as part of his Gira de lealtad or "Loyalty Tour" to protest the PRD's decision to allow electoral alliances with parties such as PAN, and continued to accuse the party of which he is still nominally a member of having made secret agreements with President Felipe Calderón. According to AMLO, the left - PRD, PT, and Convergencia - can defeat the PRI on their own, as AMLO admittedly did in Mexico State in 2006, though he neglected to add that while 2006 was a presidential election, the year before, PRD's  2005 gubernatorial candidate, which AMLO had handpicked and campaigned heavily for,  came in a disappointing third.

Notable vote in PAN's Mexico State branch: Yes to alliance with PRD with 104-1 margin

While the state branch of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) was widely expected to endorse its alliance with PRD in Mexico State, the 104-1 vote in favor was nonetheless quite remarkable, given the rancor and bad blood between the PAN and PRD following the 2006 federal election. With the infamous Ley Peña or "Peña Nieto's law," as it has been nicknamed in Mexico, already in vigor, a PAN-PRD alliance faced a new significant obstacle in that the parties will have to come up with common candidates for all legislative lists and run under one label, but given the support from the alliances from the top leadership of PAN, including all the contenders for the PAN presidency, it was a done deal: Felipe Calderón is determined not to be the president that "returned" Los Pinos, or the presidential compound, to PRI.

A significantly bigger obstacle lies with the PRD. As noted on many occasions, AMLO and the movement-advocates in and outside the PRD are doing everything they can to avoid a vote in the PRD state council in favor of an alliance with PAN. The most recent antics, as Milenio reports, is that not only is AMLO calling personally PRD state councilors to "convince" them to reject the alliance in the upcoming vote, but that the internal PRD faction Grupo de Acción Política, which is based exclusively in Mexico State yet has declared its support for AMLO's 2012 candidacy,  is offering up up 6000 pesos to every councilor that will vote against the alliance. What's next?

Peña Nieto´s institutional engineering to block PAN-PRD alliances reaps growing storm

Enrique Peña Nieto's decision to send the Green Party (PVEM) to seek to block a PAN-PRD alliance in Mexico State, beyond yet again exposing the utter cynicism of the PVEM (which Jesús Ortega rightfully denounces as his "lackeys") is instructive for a range of reasons. Most obviously, it gives a hint at the lengths to which Peña Nieto is willing to go to get the presidency in 2012. To recall, just a few days ago he used the occasion of his fifth Informe to compare the alliances to organized crime. While Peña Nieto sheepishly backtracked and claimed he was not only "respectful" of the alliances buteven "favored" them, this recent legislative onslaught, condemned by national PAN and PRD leaders, may as Ciro Gómez Leyva commented in Milenio, be his "first error." I can think of quite a few more, though it certainly exposes Peña Nieto as a man willing to do anything to reach the presidency, and the "New PRI" he purports to represent as nothing different than the Old PRI. I hope this growing scandal will get the attention it deserves.