In defense of AMLO: Calderón's criticism petty

In 2006, the PAN campaign infamously launched a barrage of ads denouncing AMLO as a "danger to Mexico." Whatever one thinks or thought of AMLO, rejecting one's major political opponent in a democracy as a "danger" - one that had successfully governed Mexico City for five years, and was backed by more than a third of the electorate - was a despicably low blow that exposed the PAN candidate as highly contemptuous of the Mexican electorate. It was, to be sure, also condemned by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), which banned several of the most offensive attack ads.

In the Mexican context, a president should be above petty political fight, yet Calderón in an interview yesterday with the (excellent) journalist Salvador Camarena, openly defended the 2006 slogan as "true and valid," and the AMLO moreover remain a danger to Mexico.

While it may seem strange from a US context of heavy campaigning from the White House, relatively clear rules regulate how much the president can do of active political proselytizing. Yet even more so, such direct criticism of AMLO, a man who today holds no elected office or appointed position, is simply petty and unworthy of the president; it should be beneath him.

Secretary of Health José Ángel Córdova and Guanajuato: Kicking against the El Yunque pricks

It is an open secret, which makes it no secret at all, that José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, federal secretary of health, is very interested in becoming the next governor of Guanajuato. A couple of days ago, ahead of the the Semana Binacional de Salud, or Binational Health Week, a major international health conference that just happened to be arranged in his native Guanajuato, Córdova Villalobos warned that the PAN could lose the state in 2012, due to internal "fractures" in the ruling Partido Acción Nacional, PAN.

What the health secretary is really saying is that due to the extremist policies of the state government, headed by Governor  Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez, it might lose the state in 2012. The local state branch of PAN is in Guanajuato in hands of El Yunque, an extreme catholic far right falangist secret organization, and the public policies of Oliva Ramírez' government have been disaster: The state was recently forced, due to local and international pressure, to release scores of women locked up for having had miscarriages and abortions, and has an extremely retrograde education system that virulently fights any sex education or information on contraceptives. Not coincidentally, the state has Mexico's highest rate of teen pregnancy. It is also the only one of Mexico's 32 federal entities that has refused to pass a law to prevent violence against women. So much for "family values."

José Ángel Córdova is painfully aware that the backlash against these extreme policies may well cause PAN to lose the state, and this is the real reason behind his thinly veiled attack on the current PAN government of Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez. It would serve the PAN and Mexico well to rid its party organization of the rightwing extremists of El Yunque; a win for Córdova in Guanajuato in 2012 - he is both a PAN moderate, and as a health professional is painfully aware of the destructive effect on El Yunque's influence on policy - would only be a good thing.

Jesús Zambrano: AMLO acts like a "Tabascan god"

PRD national deputy Jesús "Tragabalas" Zambrano Grijalva, a vice president of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, responded angrily to AMLO's threats to "pedir licencia," roughly to request a "leave of absence" from the PRD should the party defy its old caudillo and still go in alliance with PAN for the Mexico State elections in 2011. Referring to AMLO as a "Dios Santito tabasqueño," Zambrano angrily retorted:

"The PRD is not a Metro wagon that one gets on and off whenever it suits one. The PRD is a political institute that should be an instrument of society for change and not for the intentions of any individual in paritcular, or of a wider group."

Yet this is of course exactly how AMLO regards the PRD: As an instrument to serve him unconditionally. If it chooses to disobey his orders, he will readily back its opponents, as he proved in the 2009 federal elections. Yet he will not resign from the party: he rather hopes that his eventual provocations will cause the PRD leadership to loose its temper and expel him, allowing him to claim the role of victim and dismiss the PRD official party organs as merely members of the "mafia" trying to sabotage his 2012 run. Or 2018. Or 2024 - it does not really matter. 

It's on: Attendance key as Ebrard launches his Fundación Equidad y Progreso

Ebrard recently launched a new foundation, the Fundación Equidad y Progreso, whose thinly disguised mission is to work for Ebrard's 2012 candidacy. The official opening was important first and foremost in terms of who attended: While the backing of the dominant PRD faction Nueva Izquierda of Ebrard was hardly a secret, it was all but confirmed by the attendance of PRD group leader in the senate, Carlos Navarrete, at the event.

Yet more notable was the official confirmation of the break-up between AMLO and Convergencia, a quintessentially opportunistic party nominally on the left but whose main purpose remains to promote whatever benefits the interests of its founder, Dante Delgado Rannauro. Delgado's presence at Ebrard's foundation all but confirm that AMLO lost the backing of Convergencia, which now appears lined up behind Ebrard. As both AMLO and Ebrard have agreed to some kind of poll or vote among the general citizenry regarding who should be the left's candidate in 2012, the backing of Convergencia is quite significant. While I doubt it will happen anytime soon, it is certainly not unthinkable that AMLO's seemingly arch-loyal backers in the Partido del Trabajo (PT) will do the same. 

Mexico's electoral tribunal confirms PVEM fine for calling Ortega a "delinquent"

The Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJ), Mexico's highest electoral court, confirmed the fine levied by the IFE a month back on the PVEM or Mexican Green party, after Senator Jorge Legorreta, PVEM leader in Mexico City, hurled accusations that the PRD and its leader Jesús Ortega were tied to organized crime.

While the right to free speech in a democracy must be paramount, this was far beyond a mere slip of the tongue; the PVEM had repeated these claims in communiques sent out to TV and radio stations, and promoted them on Web sites. Smears at times have consequences, and at times this may be a very good thing.

Rumble in Guadalajara: Nearly 100,000 turn out to reject PAN governor

It might not have superceded 100,000, the number the organizers behind Thursday's march in Guadalajara, Jalisco, hoped to surpass, but the march to protest Governor Emilio González Márquez' education policies, or lack thereof, was nonetheless a stunning success. González Márquez, a notorious alcoholic and public drunkard who  tightly allied with the most reactionary elements of the Mexican Catholic Church and has been involved in scandals too numerous to recount here, has faced barrages of criticism for starving the UdeG, or Universidad de Guadalajara, of hundreds of millions of pesos in federal funds that González Márquez refuses to release.

Apparently, as González Márquez became aware of the magnitude of the march against him, he showed up drunk unexpectedly at the home of former rector of UdeG Raúl Padilla López to threaten and beg him to cancel the march, without success, and promised to finally release the money the university is entitled to from the federal government. Excerpt from the dialogue:

González Márquez: "Raúl, are you drunk yet"? 

Padilla López: "Me, no. You are!"

 González Márquez: "No man, this is the way I work"

I couldn't make up this stuff if I tried.

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?