Guerrero, and "Un asesinato político" (2010).

Guerrero's been a bit in the news lately regarding the heating-up of the battle to replace Goveronor Zeferino Torreblanca. A few days ago, the first official PAN-PRD coalition of 2011 was announced, and to the surprise of few, Guerrero was the first to be clinched. I had a conversation a few weeks ago with José Espina, head of PAN's National Elections Commission, where he anticipated this decision as a done deal, together with other states. The states where he did not foresee any coalitions were Michoacán and Baja California Sur. When I asked him why, the obvious answer was, they're already governed by PRD governments. Yet so is Guerrero. Espina responded to this, basically, "yes, but the governor in Guerrero is very close to  our positions." I use this a segway to some quick comments on a book I just finished,  Tomás Tenorio Galindo's  Un asesinato político. 


Without excusing the at times paranoid-conspiratorial attitude of Mexican political commentators (Ricardo Alemán in El Universal pops to mind!), Mexico certainly has had its share of political assassinations that more than hint at the involvement of the powers-that-be, and which moreover have largely remained unsolved. 


Nearly a year ago, on Aug. 20, 2009, a notable assassination of a noted politician  - a "political assassination" to many, to be sure - took place in the state of Guerrero. Armando Chavarría, a former national legislator for the PRD, and then president of the Guerrero Congress as a local deputy, was assassinated outside his home. Chavarría was also the very likely PRD nominee to replace Zeferino as governor.

The brutal murder was condemned at the national level, including by President Calderón, and PRD President Jesús Ortega, with many other perredistas, condemned it as a political assassination. And this is indeed the main point of Tenorio Galindo's new book: Chavarría's murder was political in nature, and it had something - something - to do with Governor Torreblanca. Sounds vague?

In the introduction to the book, written by noted journalist Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, we learn that the book "leads unequivocally to a disturbing conclusion: the government of Torreblanca was not unconnected to Chavarría's execution." Pretty strong stuff. 


The book sports a dramatic cover, where PRD leaders stand around a coffin draped with PRD's colors. For me it was not necessary: Being highly interested in learning more about the murder and as well more about local politics in Guerrero, I picked up the book.


A bit of background: 
Zeferino, while elected as PRD's nominee, is only affiliated with the party, and not even a member. He has been accused of being more of a panista than a perredista (he was the first PRD governor to recognize Calderón), in particular toward what his critics regard as outright repression of social movements in Guerrero. The book adds plenty of ammo to these critics. It notes, for one, that more than 30 perredistas have been murdered in Guerrero on his watch, and offers plenty of examples of his insensitivity toward his critics.
While I feel one cannot take all of these at face value - the author makes no efforts at all presenting other readings of these incidents - clearly there appears to be plenty of room for criticism of Torreblanca. Some key points are for instance his apparently incompetent/corrupt/brutal/etc attorney general, also criticized by the CNDH; repression of demonstrators; the lack of any efficient government action to clear up the kidnap and murder of indigenous activists;  riding roughshod over the State Congress, and so forth. 


Now what about the murder? 
Well, there are some tantilizing facts. The author argues that the governor ordered Chavarría's bodyguards to be taken away when he became a local deputy - he was previously a member of the state government - despite Chavarría's pleas for protection.
Crystal clear, as well, is the intense animosity between the governor and Chavarría. 
However, did the governor want Chavarría dead? Or rather, did he order him to be killed?

A very brief summary of the book and its evidence, inspired by Sergio Leone:


The Good: The book does offer quite  bit of information on Guerrero politics, and particularly on the fights Chavarría-Torreblanca. 


The Bad: The book is highly repetitive in these depictions.  I am also very critical of its use of sources: There are tons of very strong claims that are not backed up by any sources except tons of references to El Sur, a Guerrero newspaper where the writer works, but no page numbers, no headlines, nothing to go by in order to verify the book's many claims. There is much, and I mean much, innuendo here, with very little or no backing up. 
One claim the author repeats ad nauseam is that Zeferino came to power thanks to PRD - it is NOT that the PRD came to power thanks to Zeferino. Notwithstanding the argument that there is very little PRD presence in his government, which I think is fair, where is the evidence that the PRD could basically have put any candidate in 2005 and it would have won?  There is absolutely nothing to back this up; we are merely to take his word. 


Moving on: the author seems to be at pains to describe Chavarría as a man true to his leftwing convictions, while Zeferino has not an iota of perredismo within him. Many have criticized Zeferino for the same, to be sure. But let's be honest: Chavarría appears to be as well as a a man every bit as apt to wheel and to dirty deals, to engage in opportunism, destroy his enemies, etc, as Torreblanca. And then there is the case of the "60 women." Milenio published a report that the investigators of the crime had interviewed 60 Chavarría apparently had amorous relations with, 9 of them until his death, . That hardly warrants his murder, but it does suggest he was hardly a paragon of morality. Yes, this may be a leak to discredit a dead man and to derail an investigation, but the author merely dismisses it as irrelevant, without truly denying it. This is not trivial stuff. 


Also, the book may as well be seen as an attack on Jesús Ortega and his faction of the PRD, given that Torreblanca sided with Ortega in the 2008 internal election for PRD president. Yet it was not Ortega who pushed Torreblanca as candidate in 2005; rather, it was both AMLO and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. A minor point, yes, but a fact that does not fit so well with the author's story.


The Ugly: Main claim: Chavarría's murder was a political murder. And somehow, in some way, the Governor had something to do with it. Yet there is absolutely no evidence! This seems to me to be the main reason the author cannot make himself state clearly "Zeferino killed Chavarría," but rather resorts to endless suggestions, circumspect formulations, etc. This claim seem to rest principally on the fact that the governor himself might have withdrawn his bodyguards. Yet even this point seems to be contested. 




Coincidentally, I noted that today Milenio  has its own review of the book, arguing that it "leaves no room for doubts regarding the actions and those presumed responsible for them." 


After having read the book, I couldn't disagree more. 

PRD legislators chain themselves to Guanajuato State Attorney Office

Kudos to PRD federal deputy Leticia Quezada Contreras and Mexico City legislator Claudia Elena Silva Aguilar for creating awareness of the brutal treatment of women in Guanajuato, by chaining themselves to the State Attorney building in Guanajuato, responsible for prosecuting at least 160 women accused of having aborted.

Recently it was also known that the vast majority of these women, many of whom were denounced by the very boyfriends who impregnated them or doctors who treated them, are extremely poor and illiterate.

The PRD legislators denounced the Guanajuato authorities and Governor Manuel Oliva "machista, misogenous, and aggressive." To this they may also add: Despicable cowards, for attacking poor illiterate in need for support and not state repression.

Dangers of a new "cochinero": Electing the PRD et al's presidential candidate.

PRD declared it will decide shortly on how to elect the party's presidential standard bearer: Either as an open election through the urns - and not just PRD members, that is - or, through an opinion poll.
Both methods bring great dangers. Within the PRD, every single election for its presidential candidate carried out by mass party base vote has been an unmitigated disaster, and if this process is not carefully monitored, the party's election of its presidential candidate has a very high potential to become a disaster as well, in the process greatly diminishing the party/coalition's chances of winning in 2012.

Yet there is also a major problems with polls in Mexico: They are not only notoriously reliable, but also seen as highly politicized. The July 4 elections, for instance, showed an enormous disparity between what the polls said and what the outcome was, and in most cases this had to do with the PRI, which did far worse than the polls anticipated. This led of course to claims that the pollsters had been bought and paid for by the PRI to "fix" the polls in order to portray their candidates as all-but-invincible.

I recently had an interview round with several of the current IFE councilors, and most agreed that this was indeed a very serious issue that needed to be addressed ahead of 2012, through a new electoral reform or otherwise.

As for the PRD/PT/Convergencia, I still hope they will do it through a poll - an evil, yet still a lesser one. 

Peña Nieto: No to legalization. Church: PAN is inept.

Mexico State Governor Enrique Peña Nieto, in response to a rather tepid acceptance by President Felipe Calderón that legalization of drugs is indeed an option in Mexico, immediately declared himself against any such talk, but rather that "one needs to work much more on prevention." Prevention is clearly a key component of a greater scheme to fight drugs and, of course, the gangs themselves, but a blanket rejection of any discussion of legalization again places Peña Nieto on the right, aligned with the church's position on this.

The Church, incidentally, through Bishop Abelardo Alvarado, " of the arch-conservative Archdiocese of Mexico, declared that "panistas do not know how to govern."
Given the Catholic church's animosity toward the PRD - the church, in blatant breaches of the Constitution, has in many cases clearly asked its followers not to vote for the party - one might ask, what party is left to vote for that the church has not condemned, but rather cozied up to in recent years? Ironies of ironies, the party of Calles.

AMLO: No more talk of my candidacy.

As anticipated, AMLO´s declaration two years ahead of 2012 that he would see the presidency resulted in complaints that he was breaching electoral law, which after the 2007 electoral reform only allows for three months of "pre-campaigning." AMLO dismissed the complaint in a quasi-legalistic and fallacious manner, arguing it only applies to candidates of parties. Hence, since AMLO is not yet a candidate of a particular party, he argues he has every right in the world to campaign two years ahead.
Again, even if this were the case, legally speaking - and I am quite certain it is not -  it also shows an utter disrespect for the spirit of the law. Regardless, the criticism must have had some impact, as he recently declared on tour in Zacatecas (to back up his candidacy, to be sure, but disguised as "book promotion) that he would "not talk any more of his candidacy¨.".I am not holding my breath.

Peña Nieto and the church

Mexico State Governor Enrique Peña Nieto recently declared that his government and the (catholic) church has “common objectives.” That is putting it mildly. For years Peña Nieto has shamelessly courted the support of the religious right, jumping on its most regressive of social positions. I say shamelessly not principally due to the utter incongruence with the PRI’s historic secularism and reticence toward mixing religion and politics (though much of this did, to be sure, come to an end during the government of Carlos Salinas), but his breaching of electoral law to announce his love for the church. The most infamous that comes to mind is Peña Nieto's trip to the Vatican, duly covered by Televisa, where he "presented" to the pope his new wife-to-be, Angélica Rivera, and where functionaries of Mexico State lined up to get the pope´s blessing.  

Expect more expressions of love from Peña Nieto's faction of PRI to the church in the months to come. 

(His first wife died under what still appear to be rather unclear circumstances. Without exaggerating this point, it is worth having a look at this video clip, where he can´t seem to recall her exact cause of death).

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.