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.

PRI bigshot suggests "truce" with the narcos

Manuel "El Meme" Garza is no insignificant name within the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The former mayor of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, has been secretary general several times of the PRI, the party in which he has spent more than half a century. He has remained an important operador político, a political fixer, until the present. It therefore is quite notable that Garza recently called for called for a truce, of sorts, with the drug lords, though he adds "in order to catch breath, and later give them a final kick." This disclaimer notwithstanding, it is still noteworthy that a PRI bigshot calls for negotiations with the drug gang. The bigger question, of course, is: How representative is he of the party in general?

AMLO: Ebrard has "every right to be in favor of alliance" - but it is "treason," mind you

It is getting harder for AMLO to maintain his very sharp rejection of a PAN-PRD in Mexico State and elsewhere, while not directly engaging in warfare with Mexico City Chief of Government Marcelo Ebrard. Recently, the wording has become increasingly, well,  acrobatic:

"The Chief of Government is entirely in his right to declare himself in favor of an alliance, but I already made my position clear, and that it is a treason to the principles of the Left."

How does one square that semantic circle? One the one hand it is legitimate to support the alliances, yet on the other it is treason?


On the subject of word gymnastics, there is more. In a rally in Ixtapan de la Sal, south in Mexico State, one of the attendees asked him the very fair question why an alliance was OK in Oaxaca, but not in Mexico State. (In Oaxaca, to recall, AMLO kept his mouth shut even though PAN was part of the opposition alliance behind Gabino Cué). His answer:

"The conditions were different. I disagreed; I made a tour of all municipalities, and in Oaxaca there was the reason of the governor, it was something special, so then here in Mexico State, less so. We won't be impressed here."

What is one to make of this? One the one hand, it was OK to go against Ruiz (then why not Peña Nieto?), as things were different there (how?), but he was still against it, for the record. 
AMLO's verbal gymnastics simply cannot cover up for the intrinsic contradictions of this and other stands:


* He want's Peña Nieto out, but will even launch his own candidate against a PAN-PRD alliance, which will clearly destroy any chances of the left, and AMLO, to win in Mexico State/
* He argues that PAN and PRI are all the same - yet why then would it be such a disaster should the PRI return to Los Pinos, if there aren't really any differences between them?


Don't expect these contradictions to be resolved any time soon. 

Adiós, Friedrich Katz

From La Jornada. 

Farewell to a wonderful historian and human being. Mexfiles has a most worthy obituary, and more from La Jornada, and Milenio. For those new to Katz: If you are ever to read one work on Pancho Villa, read this epic work. 

Emilio González Márquez, governor of Jalisco, a gift that keeps giving

Emilio González Márquez, governor of Jalisco, is on the offensive, and wants to ride the coattails of the Mexican Revolution like everyone else, despite his tenure as one of the absolute most right-wing governors of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN): "I am a revolutionary, and a juarista," he declared yesterday in conference of newly elected PAN mayors. He is most decidedly not. As governor of Jalisco, he has preceded over, among many things, extremely reactionary education policies that includes an attack on sex education policies, and a very, very cozy relationship with the Mexican Church's most extremist, falangist elements, above his close friend (and, many have argued, his real boss), Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez. Among a rash of scandals, González Márquez was caught red handed a couple of years ago trying to pass off millions of pesos of tax payers money to pay for a sanctuary for cristero fighters, fanatical catholics who rebelled against the Mexican state in the 1920s - an attempt at counter revolution.

 No, there is absolutely nothing linking Emilio González Márquez to the Revolution; he is as counter-revolutionary as they come, and appears more far right than even El Chacal himself, the counterrevolutionary Victoriano Huerta who had Madero murdered.

If nothing else, the latest utterances of Emilio González Márquez, shows that the Mexican Revolution still is powerful enough to lead even the most counter-revolutionary of Mexico's governors to seek to link himself to it. In this case, it just won't work. 

Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez is no brave man

Marcelo Ebrard, in response to numerous provocations from Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez of Guadalajara, recently took a jab at the highly reactionary cleric by referring to him as a cavernal, or caveman. To this can be added another epithet: Coward. In response to Ebrard's current lawsuit against Sandoval and other high clergy, who have hurled around, with no evidence, accusations that Ebrard has bribed the Supreme Court, that Ebrard's party is "fascist," and so forth, Sandoval pathetically declared that it was not him, but the media, that are guilty of the "moral damage" Ebrard is suing Sandoval for. Why the media? Well, because they actually reported Sandoval's serious accusations. That's right, take no responsibility for your own statements, but shoot the messenger that reports them to the public as a whole...

It is clear that the Guadalajara cardinal is not even man enough to stand up for his own words: Not only a cultural caveman, he is also a coward.   

A present for Emilio "Etilio" González Márquez: Dramamine and alcohol ed manual

Couldn't help but noting this one: Nearly 2,000 students from Universidad de Guadalajara's Centre of Health Sciences, as part of a larger protest against sitting Governor Emilio González Márquez and his refusal to hand over federal funds owed to the country's second most important university, left for the governor a present of a box of Dramamine, against nausea, and a leaflet on how to drink responsibly, the former present a response to the governor's statement that gay marriages disgust him/make him nauseous ("Me dan asquito"), the latter a reference to González Márquez' very serious problems with... well,  engaging in irate speeches and acts while drunk out of his mind. 


Poor Jalisco: Stuck with Etilio for three more years, until 2013. Does any clearer example exist in Mexico that the country would be well served with reducing the terms for state governors to a maximum of four years?