Calderón's cabinet shuffle: Good riddance to Juan Molinar Horcasitas

Good riddance to the utterly incompetent Juan Molinar Horcasitas, who will step down from his position as secretary of communication and transportation, in favor of Dionisio Pérez Jácome. Rumors have it that he will take on a significant party position within the PAN, yet he remains thoroughly unpopular with many panistas and highly questioned for his role as as head of the IMSS, as well as of the SCT, where corruption charges bloomed.
José Antonio Meade is also replacing Georgina Kessel as energy secretary.


Of note: Roberto Gil Zuarth, national deputy and PAN hotshot, gets a massive consolation price for declining for Gustavo Madero when the vote in the national council to become party president went in his disfavor: He will become the president's personal secretary, achieving vast influence over Calderón's agenda.

PAN's presidential election: Illusion of unity shattered despite declination of Gil for Gustavo Madero

The internal elections in the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) for its new party president for the next three years, a highly significant political event on its own, was given added importance because it was the first elections in five years that actually saw what appears to have been a real competition, unlike the previous dedazos of former party presidents Germán Martínez and César Nava. Yet the two front runners, Gustavo Madero and Roberto Gil, were both considered Calderón's candidates, and in essence, the new CEN (Comité Ejecutivo Nacional) will clearly be loyally calderonista. 

Things seemed on the surface calm Saturday, with one exception: Former party president Manuel Espino, recently expelled from the party, tried to elbow himself in to the PAN compound in Mexico City with hundreds of his followers, yet was told that he would be not allowed to vote, despite the regulation that all former party presidents will have a lifetime seat on the PAN council, which elects the party president.

As the voting rounds progressed, when it became clear that Gustavo Madero was picking up the most votes, Roberto Gil announced he would also decline in the name of party unity, making Madero the winner. The immediate question was, of course: What would Gil get in return for his declination?

Now we know: Gil was apparently promised a significant chunk of the PAN's 40-strong executive committee, as the new president has the right to appoint 2/3 of these. Now Gil claims that Madero failed to keep such a bargain. Madero responded that this is "false," and also refused to affirm that any such agreement actually existed.

The new CEN will have quite a few notable members, such as:
* Luisa María Calderón Hinojosa - yep, the president's sister, who wants to be Michoacán governor
* Cecilia Romero, who was also a candidate for the presidency and represents El Yunque
* Jorge Ocejo, head of the "Rightwing International," Organización Demócrata Cristiana de América
* Maximiliano Córtazar, former presidential spokesperson
* Mariana Gómez del Campo, head of the PAN's legislative group in the Mexico City assembly
* Federal Secretary of Public Administration Salvador Vega Casillas
* Federal Secretary of Communications Juan Molina Horcasitas
* Governor of Morelos,  Marco Antonio Adame,
* Governor of Guanajuato, Juan Manuel Oliva.

In other words, one should make no mistake: This is a calderonista executive committee, through and through, and Madero - a man with the charisma of a grey rock - will very likely be a highly loyal servant of the Mexican President.

Madero proposed 27 out of the 40 members, with the national council the rest, and this appears a rough measure of strength:

- Maderistas, 20
- Cecilia Romero and the yunquistas,  8
- Gil, only 6

It has not yet been decided who will head the powerful position of secretary general, but likely it will be Cecilia Romero, also a close friend of and ultra-loyal to Calderón. Should this happen, Gil, who thought one of his people deserved this secretariat, will not be happy, and more trouble may be expected.

More details here: La Jornada, El Universal, Milenio

Roberto Gil Zuarth free to be candidate for the PAN presidency, says TEPJF.

Mexico's highest electoral court TEPJF declared yesterday unanimously that PAN's party rules do not prohibit Roberto Gil for running for the party presidency, rejecting the complaint by Senator Blanca Judith Díaz that Gil's short tenure in the party - he's been a member for barely 2.5 years - made him ineligible.

The tribunal is quite right: Technically, there is no law or stipulation in the party regulations decreeing this explicilty.

However - and there is a big however - party rules explicitly state that anyone who wants to be a member of the PAN's national council must have been a member for at least five years. It would therefore appear to be obvious that the same would apply to the party's top position, its president. One may venture to suggest that this has been so obvious that it didn't occur for anyone to write it down. Until Gil came along, that is: His backers have arrogantly dismissed this rule as having nothing to do with the party presidency.

It should be obvious to any remotely objective observer what while the TEPJF ruling may be technically correct - it is not explicitly written - it is such a blatant violation of the spirit of the party laws, and to be sure, goes against PAN's entire transitory, which remained a party of legality and institutionality until Fox and particularly Calderón heavily battered the party's autonomy. Should Gil become the party president he will be the third president imposed by Calderón. For the PAN it will be a Pyrrhic victory.

Hubris be thy name: Carla Humphrey, wife of Roberto Gil, rejected as IEDF head

The arrogance of Carla Humphrey finally brought her down: It is now clear that she utterly blew her chances of becoming president of the Instituto Electoral del Distrito Federal (IEDF), the important electoral institute for Mexico City, by accompanying her husband Roberto Gil when he registered to become a candidate for the national presidency of PAN last week. El Universal reports that outgoing President Claudia Zavala, who was elected in 2008 with no possibility of reelection, changed the preference she had declared for Humphrey last week, in favor of Gustavo Anzaldo, who with Zavala's vote got the necessary majority to be the new president of IEDF. 


Whether it was a case hubris or just sheer stupidity is hard to ascertain, but it is a quite remarkable display of arrogance that Carla Astrid Humphrey Jordan didn't think her blatant display of partisanship would not have repercussions, with the added insult to injury that she was not only a member of the electoral institute but moreover sought to be its president. Following Zavala's changed vote, Humphrey angrily declared, 

"Your attitude, councilor Zavala, does not affect me, but weakens the deliberative and decision-making processes of the institute.You, by changing the meaning of the word you gave at a meeting of the council members, vioalte the institutes internal life, its autonomy."

It is quite remarkable to hear Humphrey, whose actions, if elected, would have risked destroying any perception of IEDF's autonomy and impartiality, accuse Zavala of weakening the institute. 

Yet the issue does not stop there: 39 deputies of the Mexico City legislature, from PRD, PRI, PT, PVEM, and PANAL, in a far-to rare display of agreement, presented to the assembly's legislative commission a request to have Humphrey removed as an IEDF legislator all together. 


And PAN?PAN meekly retorted that the other parties were engaging in "machismo." 
It is hard to believe the panistas believe their own charge. Oh, the joys of schadenfreude.

Will Calderón impose his third party president of PAN? Gil grovels, but why?

Lest there should there be any doubt, any doubt at all, that Roberto Gil Zuarth is a calderonista, or Felipe Calderón's candidate to be president of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), here's Gil proclaiming to the world that he is... well, a calderonista:

"I am a calderonista, I have affinities for the President, I know him, I hold him in esteem, I have affection for him, he is part of my personal loyalties... I do not renounce nor deny my admiration for Felipe Calderón."

Even though some of the words used here in my poor translation sound perhaps less homoerotic in the original Spanish, this is just over the top, particularly as a main criticism of current PAN president César Nava, as well as his predecessor German Martínez, was exactly that they were mere impositions by Caldéron - and that in a party that always proudly proclaimed its independence and refusal to succumb to the powers-that-be, even if they were from the PAN.  


Should there be any more doubts that Gil is the anointed candidate of Mexico's president, Gil added for good measure that he would "preserve the legacy of Calderón." I find that disturbing on so many levels.


But there is also something here that doesn't quite add up. Why go to so extreme lengths to identify with Calderón? One possibility is that while Gil's afinidades for Calderón are probably real, he knows that his candidacy might be formally rejected as he only has 2 years and 4 months in the party, and in may step a Gustavo Madero, a man who is also a calderonista but who is not shouting it out like Gil, which may make him more palatable to more PAN councilors whose, well, affinity for Calderón is waning. This includes the 85-100 members of PAN's national council who those in the know reckon to be members of El Yunque.


(Yet I admit this is starting to sound a bit like El Universal's house conspiracy theorist Ricardo Alemám, who like an old clock who has stopped at least twice a day will eventually be correct)

PAN deviates from its usual script: Infighting over party presidency goes public

The Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), in stark contrast to, say, the PRD, has always been known for its orderly transitions from one party president to another. One of the major reasons for this, in this blogger's opinion, is the fact that PAN uses a majority vote by its 381-member national council, while PRD, despite attempts at reform, insists on open election by mass vote, which with no exception has turned into disasters.

However, even with such an institutional mechanism, the leadership fight within the PAN is looking increasingly bitter. The party has now five official candidates: Roberto Gil, Gustavo Madero, Francisco Ramírez Acuña, Cecilia Romero, and Blanca Judith Díaz. Last week, Senator Judith Díaz impugned the candidacy of Roberto Gil on the grounds that he has been a member of PAN for less than three years, and is such does not fulfill the requisite to be a leader of the party. According to party statutes, a minimum of three years is required to be a member of the national council, though no mention is made of the president - though given PAN's history as a highly institutionalized and follow-the-rules party, it is so obvious that the party president should also fulfill this requirement that it is not even put in writing. Why, after all, should this apply only to councilors, but not to the party's president? 


(Note, however, Federico Berrueto's groveling column where he bends over backward [or forward, if one prefers] in a pretty pathetic attempt to downplay and dismiss this criterion).


Following the last-minute declaration by Roberto Gil to be a candidate, all the other candidates have now teamed up against him, arguing that the membership criterion must be "analyzed." In response, outgoing party president César Nava said that the national executive committee will send the case to the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF), the country's highest electoral court, which also has rules on internal affairs of Mexico's political parties. 


As a side note, though an important one, the PRD and PRI are up in arms, and understandably so, after Gil's wife Carla Astrid Humphrey Jordan - yes, that is her real name - accompanied her hubby for the PAN registration event. Ms. Humphrey is also an electoral councilor of the state electoral institute in the Federal District (IEDF), who moreover is seeking to become president(!) of the institute - despite this quite blatant evidencing of her lack of distance to the PAN - which is quite literal, as she is sleeping with the man who might be PAN's national president!


As for the PAN's presidential struggle, by appealing to this external institution, it is quite notable that the party is deviating from its usual cool script in that it is no longer able to solve its own internal differences. Should his opponents succeed in blocking Gil, who is the candidate of Calderón, it will surely mean that calderonismo, already on the wane within the PAN, has lost its dominance over the party definitely. 

The caballada expands: Roberto Gil Zuarth registers for PAN leadership succession

The past weekend and week saw the additional registration for contenders for the PAN presidency of Senator Blanca Judith Díaz and Francisco Ramírez Acuña, former governor of Jalisco (2001-2006), briefly minister of the interior in Calderón's cabinet, and now a federal deputy. 


Yet it was the rather surprise announcement by Roberto Gil Zuarth yesterday that he would also seek the nomination that caused the greatest stir.  Roberto Gil Zuarth is considered quite a hot-shot in PAN and a quick riser - and he is barely 33 years old. Notably, former interior minister Fernando Gómez Mont, under which Gil served, accompanied him for his registration and declared he would consider returning to PAN, should Gil become its next president. Gómez Mont, to recall, loudly renounced from PAN over the electoral alliances with PRD, and then from the administration of Felipe Calderón this July. He has held a very low profile ever since. 


Until now, Senator Gustavo Madero and Ramírez Acuña have been considered the front runners, yet Gil appears closer to Calderón than any of them. 


There is one problem:  According to party rules, the party's national councilors, who will elect the president Dec 4-5, all need to have been members of at least five years of the party, and Gil only has about 2.5 years of membership in the PAN. His supporters retort that the rule only apply for councilors, and not the party president, and as such does not disqualify Gil. Yet  this is pretty disingenuous. Yes, the statutes may only stipulate the national councilors need five years of party membership and say nothing about the president, but a more plausible reading of this is simply that it would be even more unthinkable for a president to have less than five years militancy - after all, what is the logic of demanding it of the PAN council but not the president? Yet the time when PAN was a party that strictly adhered to the internal party rules or even obeyed the spirit of the statues, has long passed. To cite but the most obvious, Calderón himself blatantly intervened to  have his designates Germán Martínez and then César Nava appointed as party presidents.


In any event, should there be any doubt as to Calderón's preferences, Germán Martínez (2007-2009 PAN president) declared that Roberto Gil would represent calderonismo as well as post-calderonismo, as the tenure of head of PAN's excecutive committe would extend to 2013, after the presidential elections.  Ramírez Acuña and particularly Madero until now appeared the strongest contenders; now, many may place their money rather on Gil.